Innocence
by Enigmas
Summary: Ruth and Lucas are taken by a group of Syrian extremists believing that the UK is supporting the rebels remotely from London, the group threatens both the public and two of The Grid's own in an attempt to force them to pull out. As the remainder of the Section fight to save their colleagues their job turns into a moral dilemma when they realise how complex the situation in Syria is
1. Ignorance Is Bliss

**Chapter 1**

Ignorance is Bliss

Her eyelids flickered as her senses slowly came back to her, feeling as though she was coming round from anaesthetic, threatening to reveal the cold, cruel world she had been enveloped in and consumed by these past few days.

He had always protected her from it before, always kept it at arm's length, thinking that she was too fragile, too delicate to live in it, too afraid to lose her to it as he had done with how many others? He had been right...

It was strange now that she thought about it, to be so caught up in the life she left, to be taken into the country's heart and have all of its dirty little secrets laid bare before her and still manage to live a sheltered life, to not know everything, to still have a little naivety, a little innocence left to her. That she could live in naivety fully aware of its existence, but never a part of it, not completely, only ever allowing herself to dip into it behind one-way glass, watching but never watched.

That had all changed now. She had been thrust in at the deep end, the only think that had stopped her from drowning before was now gone, taken away from her to God knows where, leaving her nothing to hold on to, floating in a black abyss beyond the reach of those who would move Heaven and Earth and still be unable to find her in Hell.

She allowed consciousness to wash over her without allowing herself to become fully conscious of her surroundings, whatever they were, she did not want to see them, did not want to have to accept the reality of what had now become her life...Ignorance was indeed, bliss...

She shivered and pulled her knees closer up to her chest, trembling with cold and trying not to, burying her hands into the armpits of the thick cotton jumper he had given her and that she was now infinitely grateful for, pulling it tightly around her as she did so, withdrawing like a turtle into its shell.

She pulled herself closer to the harsh, freezing, stone wall behind her, hoping to seek some comfort from it. She had never fully appreciated what it meant to be in solitary confinement, never understood what kind of effect it had on a person, and have not appreciated the company and solace he had provided in this Hell.

She jumped as a drop of icy water landed between her eyes and caused her to open them involuntarily, becoming suddenly aware of the cold pool that was forming beneath her.

Muffling a sharp scream of horror and alarm in her woollen sleeve she staggered to her feet, shocked, the thick soles of her boots splashing in the half-inch of water that had formed beneath them.

Someone that would ordinarily have caused her some irritation and discomfort now, in her shock and confusion, caused terror to flare in her chest as her heart began to flutter rapidly like that of a dying bird as she realised this was far from ordinary. Waking up where she had done these past few days would have been bad enough but now she wished she could return to the cold, clinical, white-walled cell now that she discovered she was trapped at the bottom of something that resembled a deep, square well. The walls behind her rose in sharp, unyielding sheets of cold stone to a small opening above her, the thin tube was only about four feet wide but stretched up for what seemed like miles above her, though in reality was only around fifteen feet, its seemingly endless ascent halted by a thick iron gate that was protected by thick chains, locked together by a combination padlock that loomed down upon her with an almost mocking air of awful finality.

She looked around her in desperation, the insistent water had already risen to her ankles as she pounded on the thick walls, panic giving way to hysteria and accomplishing nothing but scraped fists and bruised knuckles, sliding down the wall in despair.

From her position curled on the floor she noticed that, just over her head, a slim piece of paper had been taped precariously to the sheer stone wall, she tore it down, her eyes reading the words that sickened her and made her wish she could throw them away as she did the paper they were written on,

_Water, water everywhere and far too much to drink. "_

_Your friends trade codes or what do you think, _

_The greater good _

_They always do_

_So I'd say your goodbyes before you sink. _

She knew that the twisted poem was right; she knew what they would do because she knew what they would do in her position. As a spook, it was an unspoken clause in the job description that you would give everything to this job, up to and including your life, both physically and emotionally.

How many times had she seen it? How many of them had she watched forced through Traitor's Gate? Wasn't this job and all the 'necessary evils' the reason she believed that a man she had worked with for three years, had trusted, had cared about, would have attempted to kill her because of what had broken inside him because of this job. And how many of their funerals had attended in how little time? Had she really been so naive as to think that her desk or his protection would have stopped them attending hers one day? Everyone was chewed up and spat out by the machine that was MI-5 and if that was all you got then you were lucky, but no-one left with what they started, they all lost something...

They all went in to this job on a timer; knowing that they had an expiry date, that they were disposable, that when it came down to the choice between an enforced self-sacrifice of the most extreme kind, against the 'greater good' that the greater good would always be chosen. A democracy to the bitter end.

And what did they receive, what did they _expect _for working with bombs on their brains and devil's on their backs? Nothing. No medals, no red-carpets and black-tie award ceremonies, no fame and no fortune, no-one would ever remember your name and your sacrifice because no-one would ever know that you existed...

Without ever giving it permission to do so, she found her body shaking violently and slumped back against the frozen wall as she collapsed, screaming in frustration and fear, hands going to her mouth, her tears adding to the swelling pool around her as she broke down.

She knew, she knew that had her worst fear had come true, down here, very alone...They would not pick her at the cost of thousands of innocent lives, both here and abroad, not to mention the international chaos..._She _would not pick her, and he could not pick her, not now...She was going to die. She was going to die down here alone and in the dark. She was going to die in pain and terror because no-one cared enough to save her and she had almost six hours to come to terms with that. To come to terms with the things that she hadn't and now couldn't say, with the people she loved and would now never see and the ones she loved who would now never know, she would not be able to tell them because, in just under six hours...She would be dead.

A/N: Thanks for reading, review if you have a minute :)


	2. 5760

A/N: I might be playing a little fast and loose with reality on this one and whose jurisdiction this would be under, I've tried to rationalise it as far as I can but well I may just have to say screw it, it's fiction after all :)

**Chapter 2**

5760

_4 Days Earlier:_

Ruth hurried onto The Grid, diving into the pods and somehow managed to save all of the loose papers that threatened to make a break for it, willing the smooth doors to rotate faster as she attempted to look at the watch on her wrist, fumbling with the confused tangle of papers in her hands.

She was so engrossed in this that it took her a second to notice that the pods were allowing her access to The Grid and were currently bearing down upon her expectantly as she stumbled out into the midst of the team gasping,

"Sorry, I got caught up in the-" she began before breaking off as she realised that her colleagues were sitting calmly at their desks supping tea and coffee, not retreating to underground bunkers, "What- I thought?" she said, confused,

"False alarm." Tariq told her causally, yawning and stretching,

"It's not all bad...Lucas bought cake." Ros told her with a smirk, sliding the card box of chocolate éclairs towards her.

Dumping the enormous stack of papers onto her desk in a flurry, she snatched up an éclair and collapsed onto her chair, taking a large chunk out of it with a ferocity that would have been appropriate had it insulted her family.

"Tea, Ruth?" Lucas asked, holding up her mug on the way to fetch his third.

"Thanks." She choked, trying to maintain her dignity through a mouthful of éclair.

"We were just discussing the latest 'breakthrough' in world peace." Sofia said, sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

Ruth watched the younger woman carefully; it had only been about a week after the peace talks and not even two after she had been raped. On the surface, she looked exactly the same, same sharp-tongued cynical young officer with the sharper wits that excelled under pressure but Ruth always wondered what went on behind closed doors. They all lived so much of their lives as different people, particularly the field officer, shrouded in a veil of secrets and lies that it was too easy to pretend that everything was alright until it wasn't.

Still, she knew that the young woman was too private and too stubborn to allow the intrusion of her questioning and so she settled for taking another bite of éclair and asking,

"In particular?"

"Well, you'll remember the peace talks at the Kieran estate?" she said, "Well as it turns out, a treaty was negotiated and signed by every nation present, agreeing to limit their nuclear arms...But not by how much, so effectively, they can all continue making their nuclear stockpiles in their underground lairs while they tell the world their wonderful and look at how they've come further down the path of nuclear peace than any other leaders blah blah blah..."

"It's not that bad..." Lucas said, diplomatically, returning to the group and gently handing Ruth a mug of tea as he continued, "They have agreed to continue talks in the coming months to agree on definite limits."

"Right." Ros snorted,

"If they're being held in London I'm handing in my resignation." Ruth said, flatly, sipping at her tea.

A mumble of agreement that ran through the room at this, except Lucas who said,

"No, never ones to waste an opportunity, the American's are hosting the next one."

"Good." Ros grunted, "Every time I close my eyes I see words from that report flying in front of them..."

"Tell me about it, I've been dreaming about the damn thing..." Lucas sighed,

"Dreaming? From the looks of you, you haven't slept in weeks." Ros shot back.

It was true. He had dark circles under his eyes, had arrived on The Grid without being asked, again causing Ros to believe she had to start asking him for lottery numbers, and in the time it had taken for the others to start filtering in he had had four cups of coffee and two cups of tea. He had been suffering from a bout of insomnia that had become increasingly frustrating as it continued. Nothing he had done had enabled him to get more than broken sleep most nights and he had given up in the last few days, resorting to coming in to The Grid that morning after he began climbing up the walls of his apartment.

"I can still daydream can't I." He said, with a genial smile, lightly covering the more serious implications of her comment.

She was cut off as the door to Harry's office was opened,

"Ah Ruth, nice of you to join us." He said, lightly, eyes twinkling, as he turned to address his team,

"Meeting room, two minutes." He told them shortly, striding off in that direction.

Knowing from past experience and ringing ears that 'two minutes' meant _now _his section rose simultaneously and traipsed into the meeting room, the light layer of chatter that had been bubbling between them at the desks accompanied them to the table that they now settled themselves at, waiting expectantly for Harry.

When he entered he looked rather taken aback to see his entire team gathered together, waiting for him thinking that they all knew him a little too well but quickly recovered his composure as he began,

"I take it you've all heard the rewarding outcome of our peace talks?" he said, gruffly, telling them all that he had

"Indeed." Ros said, before continuing in her characteristic acidic sweetness "And, as they're done as far as we're concerned, are we to take it that it's now onward and upwards, another disaster, another day?"

"Glass is always half full with you Ros isn't it?" he said, sarcastically, smirking in her direction and resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

"Depends what's in it and how many I've had before I start discussing philosophical viewpoints." She shot back, before saying, "What is it this time?"

"A history lesson." He replied evasively, with a small smile.

"Subject?" Sofia enquired,

"Ireland or Iran?" Ros asked, grinning,

"You're in a good mood this morning." Lucas observed,

"Oh I'm always in a good mood Lucas." she replied swiftly,

"In answer to your question, neither, Syria." He said, causing her to raise her eyebrows at him.

"In 1964, following a successful coup d'état, the Ba'ath party came in to power in Syria. They have ruled since then in what has becoming effectively a single-party state. Their current President, Bashar al-Assad, came to power in 2000 at aged thirty four, replacing his father and taking the position with the usual false hope and empty promises of social reform."

"Yes, the Damascus Spring between July 2000 and August 2001, a series of political debates linked to social reform in Syria." Ruth said, not entirely sure where this was going but chipping in anyway.

"Wasn't too successful given the state the country's in now." Tariq muttered,

"He may have come in to power promising social reform but 'failing to deliver' seems like a bit of an understatement." Lucas said, quietly, "If anything, things got worse under his control, standard of living decreased while prices of commodities and youth unemployment both increased. Split the country in two, with the national coalition calling for change and supporters of the government opposing it, no surprise there..." he finished darkly

"No, Syria's had an awful human rights record for years." Ruth said solemnly, picking at the thread Lucas had left exposed, "Assembly, association and expression have been strictly controlled since the government took office, human rights activists and government critics have been arrested and detained under emergency power laws put in place in 1963 and argued away by the government by citing the war in Israel as an excuse."

"While this is all _fascinating_..." Ros said, drily, "I'm wondering why we're being fascinated by it, last time I checked, Syria was not a part of Britain, I'm having rather unpleasant flashbacks to six..."

Harry sighed, "For all your many attributes Ms Myers, you are one of the most insufferably bloody impatient people I've ever come across." He told her sternly,

Lucas chuckled, "She had her patience surgically removed, along with tact and tolerance a long time ago." He smirked, earning him a sharp, well-aimed kick under the table.

"Too bloody true..." Harry muttered, "before continuing, "As Ros so observantly pointed out, Syria is not a part of the UK and before you ask, no I have not suddenly become bored and gone fishing across the Thames for things to keep you all occupied with. There have been some developments n Syria that have had some complex repercussions in Britain."

"If you say MI-6 and 'liaise with' in the same sentence at any point in the near future I can quite confidently predict some serious health complications forcing me to take a holiday to Barbados." Ros said flatly.

"For two." Lucas interjected, winking at her.

Harry gave both of them a withering look before saying, "Before you start looking out your bikinis, you may want to pay attention; this is where it gets interesting..."

A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing, if you have a minute, I would love to know your thoughts.


	3. Postcards and Poetry

A/N: I will confess that a lot of this is a plausible invention of my own so please don't sue any inaccuracies, there's only so much I can verify, if it's ridiculously unrealistic, let me know and I'll change it, otherwise, I hope you've enjoy.

**Chapter 3**

Postcards and Poetry

"This is a state of the art warship that can be used as anything from a fully armed floating tank to the Ryan Air version of a cruise liner." Harry informed them as a grim, oppressive black ship was displayed on screen for their inspection.

"One I could be sorely tempted to take depending on where this is going." Ros murmured, looking at the bleak boat with mingled curiosity and suspicion.

"One of these is currently sitting, unidentified, within spitting distance of the main Syrian port of Latakia." Harry continued, ignoring the interruption.

"Let me guess, the Syrians have come to the conclusion that it's ours?" Sofia asked, matter-of-factly.

"Correct." Harry said, curtly,

"And they've come to this conclusion because..."

"It _is _ours." Harry replied bluntly, "Highly classified information by the way." He said, after catching Ruth's widened eye.

"That sentence would be more impressive if you didn't begin every other operation with it." Ros smirked,

"Why is it there?" Lucas asked, trying to get to some sort of point.

"I have no idea." Harry replied flatly, "The government are not being very forthcoming on the subject; I had barely said the words 'ship' and 'Syria' when the Home Secretary palmed me off to the MOD." There was a collective groan around the table at this.

"And you've been on hold to them since..." Sofia grinned, eyebrows raised,

"Friday."

"OK, so, while we don't actually know why it's there, can we assume that the Syrians are having a few guesses of their own, none of which involve the friendly delivery of complimentary tea and scones?" Lucas said pensively,

"Unfortunately. Britain has been receiving threats, direct and indirect, from pro-government groups in Syria since the ship was spotted two days ago, they believe that it's carrying weapons and supplies for the rebel groups based at the port."

"What?" Ruth said, startled, "Britain hasn't taken any stake in this, it's a civil war, it doesn't impact us, only the surrounding Arab nations have become involved so far, the American's haven't even stuck their beaks in this, why do they think we have?" she protested.

"Can you blame them? If we're paranoid what does that make them? They see Western interference everywhere, they'll think we're getting involved because we can, taking matters into our own hands under the protection of supposed anonymity, they've now seen through..." Lucas pointed out softly, "My question is why target Britain directly, surely threats should have been leveled at the ship itself first?"

"Because, to all intents and purposes, that ship is Britain." Harry replied, grimly,

"What do you mean?" Ruth asked, her confusion mirrored in the faces of her colleagues,

"As I said, this is state of the art, modern technology's a wonderful thing, there are a grand total of six crew members on board, as an insurance policy only, everything that happens on there, from what they eat for lunch to where it makes port is controlled remotely from London and the instructions are then sent to the ship. The crew can only take control of the vessel is they are given emergency authorization codes directly from Britain."

"Jesus, it's like a little piece of London broke off and decided to go holidaying in the Mediterranean." Sofia breathed, cottoning on to the implications of this kind of ship.

"If the mountain won't go to Muhammad..." Tariq muttered,

"Then the Syrian extremists must come to London." Ros finished sourly, "Who's bloody brilliant idea was this?" she snarled, "Let's send an unidentified remote-control cargo ship carrying God knows what to a warzone and see how long it takes for them to start sending us their own unidentified cargo in return."

"I don't know who we have to thank for this ingenuity, or how they found out, I just know that we now have to deal with the fallout." Harry sighed, privately agreeing with her.

"I take it this has all been denied, publically and privately?" Lucas asked,

"Publically, a flat no. Privately, it 'hasn't been confirmed'."

"Bloody politicians." Ros and Lucas hissed in unison.

"Is it possible that the MOD's adult version of a ten year old's toy is struggling in the real world, lost touch with us here in London and inadvertently stumbled into Latakia port?" Ruth asked,

"Unlikely."Harry sighed, taking a moment to remind himself why he needed her around to be the voice of optimism in the sea of pessimism his cheery colleagues continually threw him overboard in, "The crew members would have then been given manual control, the electronics and communications are on separate systems. No that ship's there for a reason..."

"Is it vital that we know it?" Tariq asked,

"Maybe, maybe not." Harry shrugged helpfully, "At the minute, I'm leaning towards not, at this moment in time, I don't care whether the entire British Army or the 'Newcastle Knitting Society' is on board, I care about the threats that are being leveled at this country and these security services as a result."

"What?" echoed in chorus around the table at this revelation.

"What did we do?" Sofia demanded, in mock amazement.

"They've decided that we are the font of all knowledge in this country and that our government actually deigns to tell us things that may make our lives easier." Harry replied, grimly,

"Unfortunately, in this instance, we know enough, not enough to know what's going on, but enough to put a target on our backs." Ruth sighed, understanding,

"A target for what exactly?" Sofia asked, "What are they threatening us with specifically?"

"'Specifically', they're not targeting anything." Harry sighed, "That's one of our main concerns, they're targeting 'Britain' which is, unfortunately, rather a large target, effectively, they're threatening to turn almost anywhere in this country into something that resembles a warzone in order to 'make us understand exactly what we are getting ourselves involved in."

"How are they making these threats?" Ros asked, "Do they have a website or are they just sending the Home Secretary 'wish you were here' postcards?"

"They're using the internet, but they're also using intelligence."

"Bad combination for us..." Lucas muttered,

"It's loosely termed Trojan Communication." Harry began, before Tariq interrupted,

"Damn." He breathed, "Very bad for us...As far as I understand it they'll use different sites scattered across the web, bouncing the IP address around the globe every time they post something.'Invitations' are sent out to potentially sympathetic parties, they then 'subscribe' if you like, they're given aunique code to gain access and are sent details of the site the latest message is on, password passwords are given out at the end of the latest instalment;usually each user is given a limited time to access it before it's of whatever they post we can usually get access to but there's never enough for a trace or to know exactly what they're planning...Itake it that all we have some fractions of these messages?" he asked Harry who nodded.

He brought up a grainy video and pressed play, Ruth quietly translated over it, looking repulsed,

"...We slit our throats and watch our enemies drown in the blood of our motherland that they have seen fit to use as their playground. We will take their towns and turn their pretty little English streets into warzones, make them understand exactly what they are getting involved in."

"Charming." Sofia muttered darkly, "They're always so bloody poetic, apparently, 'let's plant bombs in London' just doesn't have the same ring..."

"What about MI-5? What romantic phrases have they invented for us?" Ros asked, grimly,

In response, Harry brought up a second video, again, a blank screen containing only muffled voices and Ruth again consented to softly translate their words,

"Their filthy spies are trying to destroy our beloved government, they think to shock and scare us with their ships and their guns, well, we can shock and we can scare, and we will, we will take their-" she broke off abruptly as the video also cut out

"That's it?" Ros asked, sharply, knowing that it was the next section that would have been crucial.

"That's it, snippets, it was a coincidence that the last one cut out in an appropriate place, that's all we could get from it, the rest of the data was too corrupt to salvage." Harry explained, sighing,

"Have this group identified themselves? Has anyone specifically named themselves and taken credit for this?" Lucas asked.

"Probably, but not as far as our current information goes." Harry replied, "Tariq, I want you to run voice comparisons on the video's audio, I want names, faces, details, if these people have so much as breathed on this country before, I want to know about it."

"How much access do I have?"

"As much as you need. I want the smell of these bastards by lunchtime."

"We're considering them to be an immediate threat?" Sofia asked, quietly, "There hasn't been any British involvement in Syria, or vice versa, throughout this conflict and now you want to go rifling through their underwear drawers because of some vague video clips?" she pointed out, fighting to keep her tone reasonable.

"No, I want to go rifling through their underwear drawers because I think they've already been through ours and I don't want to start whatever this is two steps behind them." He shot back, "They already know too much about this for us not to take these threats seriously, Hell, they knew that damn ship was ours before I did! We cannot, and will not ignore this..."

"Alright." Sofia said quietly, accepting this, "Where do we go from here?"

"You go and visit your new best friend the Home Secretary, squeeze him until he squeaks, we don't have the time and I don't have the patience for you to play houses with him, no niceties, I want to know what he knows, every fiber of my being rejects the idea of having less information relating to our national security than that pretentious oaf."

"Let that be a lesson to you, never disagree with him again..." Ros smirked, conspiratorially across the table at Sofia,

"Noted." She said, looking ecstatic about her 'punishment'.

"Ruth, I need you to look into pro-government, extremist groups currently active in Syria, I'm afraid you'll be spoilt for choice until Tariq can identify the speakers on that video and give you a name but find out what you can, get a feel for them, their policies, loyalties and methods, you know the drill."

Tariq, Ruth and Sofia had all risen and were making tracks, one looking considerably less enthusiastic than the others, when Harry turned to Lucas and Ros,

"We have an asset with strong connections to Syria called Kahlil Attia...Unpredictable springs to mind if I'm going to be delicate, both of you go and meet him, and both of you be careful," He said sternly, eying Lucas, who's shoulder still had stitches from an incident on the last operation, despite Harry's warnings of caution, "Gently, gently with him...I know how you excel at that Rosalind." He said, smirking slightly,

"I think he means you're the muscle on this one." Lucas grinned and Ros gave him a look telling him that, given her way, she would be meeting Attia alone as he would be unfortunately engaged with a coroner.

"Behave." Harry said, rolling his eyes as they began a silent, but good-natured argument as they stood up, "Be back in time for lunch, I want this dealt with quickly and quietly, bring me their heads by the end of the week..."

A/N: Thank-you to all of my readers, in particular my reviewers, if you have a minute I would be grateful for your thoughts.


	4. The Angel's Lies

**Chapter 4**

The Angel's Lies

Tariq was staring at the monitor, eyes wider than was generally considered normal, ears bleeding as a result of listening to, and isolating audio on the videos continuously for almost two hours, the large red words, 'NO MATCH FOUND' becoming seared permanently into the back of his eyeballs. Consequently, it took his brain a moment to register and process the green screen and words, 'MATCH FOUND'.

"Harry!" he called, pulling a face as he realised he sounded as though he had been playing a drinking game with himself directly related to his failed voice comparisons.

Harry and Ros joined him, Ruth, Lucas and Sofia all being otherwise occupied or they would also have answered the c all, on The Grid, 'Harry' was synonymous with many things including 'danger' and 'help', and was generally considered as an overall call to arms.

"What have you got?" Ros asked, leaning against the desk and squinting at the screen,

"A match, _finally." _He said, running his fingers through his hair and shaking his head like a dog, "I couldn't get anything on the main contributors so I started isolating and analysing background..."

His fingers danced merrily across the keyboard, delighted at having something to do at last as he pulled up their file on the owner of the newly identified voice.

"Adilah Salib." Tariq began, "Thirty two, Syrian national, born in Damascus, she's been travelling mainly between Britain and Syria for the last eight years, family in both. Latest intelligence shows that she belongs to a group called 'The Angel's Lies', they're ghosts, files as thin as Ros' smile." He summarised neatly after skimming the main points of the document,

"And about as encouraging." Harry smirked,

He and Ros began scanning the file as Ruth stumbled into the room, having managed to locate her vanishing colleagues, after having left them for a few minutes to dive quickly into another room, she had been initially alarmed to return to the one she had vacated and find that it resembled the 'Mary Celeste'.

"Have you got something?" she asked from the doorway, moving over to join them,

"No, Tariq's just taking our lunch orders." Ros replied, automatically, sarcasm being her default setting with the analyst.

Rolling his eyes and nudging her subtly in the ribs, Harry answered more helpfully, "We've indentified one of the background voices on the video as Adilah Salib, associated with a group called 'The Angel's Lies', does that mean anything to-"

"Bollocks." She said, before he finished, causing him to raise he eyebrows,

"I'll take that as a yes..."

"The Angel's Lies are a small faction within something larger, a group within a group if you like, think Russian dolls. It came into existence about two years ago in 2011 in response to the uprising in March. Not a lot is known about them, but they're extremely efficient and well-organised, effective and ruthless..." she said, rummaging through some of the papers she had deposited on the desk behind them before she had joined them at the monitor.

"How 'effective' are we talking here?" Ros asked quietly, thumbing through some of the more graphic files in Ruth's collection.

"Very." She replied bluntly, finally locating the file she was after, "They're the most specialised members of this group, the 'Shabiha'." She explained, flicking open the relatively slim folder as she went on, "Loosely translated 'Shabiha' means 'thugs' although it's possibly derived from the Arabic word 'shabah' meaning ghost."

"Yes, now that we're all familiar with the deep etymological roots of their name,can we discuss the more pressing matter of _who _they are?" Ros broke in with her usual bulldozer's tact.

"Officially, according to the Syrian government, the Shabiha are just networks of criminal gangs operating in the country, taking advantage of the unrest caused by the uprisings."

"Unofficially?" Tariq asked, cautiously,

"While it's not a hundred per cent certain who they're loyal to, they have too many 'coincidental connections' with the current President and government for them to have a neutral relationship. Members are generally 'Alawite', a religious group that are a minority and were persecuted until 1970. Under the new regime they now dominate the government, security services and military and have strong ties to the President Assad, many of the members are actually blood relations. Reports have come in of alleged members of the Shabiha dressing in civilian clothing and assisting the government's forces during oppression of the uprisings."

"And let me guess, The Angel's Lies are the Shabia's 'fixers' the ones they use when brute force and reputation aren't enough?" Harry asked,

"Yes." Ruth said, softly, "If that's who we're dealing with then we have a very serious problem...An officer from six infiltrated their group early last year, his cover was blown, they found out who and what he was...They imprisoned him and tortured him for six months before they killed him, chopped him up into manageable pieces and mailed his body parts back to Vauxhall Cross as a warning." She told them, grimly,

At that moment, Lucas stuck his head around the door,

"Getting anywhere with our slippery friend?" Harry asked, needing some good news,

Lucas grimaced before answering, "Yes and no, God knows how long it's taken me on the phone but he's agreed to meet in person."

"Alright, minor miracle in itself, what's the problem?" Harry replied, looking quizzically at the calm officer,

"He's twitchy, dictionary definition of paranoid; he doesn't want to meet in the usual place, he's asking we meet at a safe house, 'Echo Six' on Carnwath Road."

Harry paused and considered this giving Ruth the opportunity to ask,

"Did he sound like he was under duress? Being intimidated, forced to lure you somewhere, it's quite a specific location request...Not something many assets could request..."

"He sounded terrified, but I don't think that was anything other than self-inflicted, I get the impression that 'petrified' is his default setting."

"I agree." Harry sighed, "The location isn't that suspicious either, he's been taken there before, by someone with a bigger mouth than we're accustomed to clearly, go, meet him, w need whatever he can give us right now...Did you tell him what we wanted to talk to him about?"

"No, I didn't think he needed more reason than he already had to panic, but I'm sure he knows, or at least suspects, he's switched on, just, too much..." Lucas replied, already moving to the door with Ros at his heels.

"Right, be careful, get what you can, we _need _his information..."

...

"How was I on the phone to him for?" Lucas sighed, collapsing into the passenger seat beside Ros who smirked as she started the car and said,

"About two hours..." she grinned, "You've got more patience than me..."s

"Tell me something I don't know...You shouldn't be around him for extended periods of time...It could be very bad for his health..." he replied, a small smile dancing across his lips.

"Bloody pain in the...If you've got something, give it to me, if not give me that, I don't care what it is, just give me more than pathetic whining and wasting my time, likely to get us both killed standing around dithering..." she snapped,

"Well, lucky you know I'll always give you something Ros..." he grinned, eyes dancing mischievously,

She cast him a sideways glance, smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, "Very true..."

They pulled up outside the safe house and glanced up to see a light on behind the curtains pulled across what was, presumably, the upstairs bedroom window.

"Apparently he has a key..." Ros said, mildly, swinging out onto the pavement.

"Apparently so...Nothing like making yourself at home..." Lucas agreed as they walked up the path towards the front door.

Ros stretched out a hand to open the door as they stepped onto the front porch, but Lucas gently but firmly placed a hand over her outstretched wrist before she could touch the handle, pointing wordlessly towards the lock.

Looking, she saw what he had already noticed, while the door was closed soundly, the deep gouge-marks in the soft metal implied forced entry by someone who did not have a key or a reason to be there...

Both of them drew the weapons at their hips and Ros pushed the door open more cautiously, advancing slowly into the hall, Lucas behind her. She motioned for him to continue straight ahead upstairs while she turned left and moved deeper into the heart of downstairs.

Both of them were familiar with the layout of the house, and both of them could spot the signs of disturbance that had been covered up as best as possible but not enough. Ros paused, examining the picture frames on a table in the hall, they had been replaced neatly back on top of it, but there was no glass in any of them, and she could still see small fragments glinting innocently at her, lodged in the thick woollen carpet underfoot.

She moved into the tiled kitchen, a fan turning noisily overhead, piquing her paranoia as she realised it drowned out all other noise. Using windows and the glass in cabinets to look over her shoulder, she moved deeper into the cabinet, noticing the strange texture of the tiles and realising that oil had spilt over the floor.

She jumped and turned on her heel as something smashed behind her, swearing as the bits of broken glass struck the bottoms of her legs. She looked at what had caused the jar to fall and cursed under her breath, half-relived, half-irritated at the fat ginger cat perched, curiously on the worktop. She paused to run a hand down its back as she made to leave the kitchen, causing it to arch its back and nuzzle her affectionately. She was about to enter the living room when a strangled cry from upstairs attracted her attention,

"Ros!"

She did not hesitate before flinging herself from the room and up the stairs, taking them two at a time,

"Lucas, what-"she began, breaking off as she spotted the reason for his shout,

Their 'invaluable' asset was lying, spread-eagled on the bed, the scarlet ribbon of blood emanating from the bullet wound between his eyes contrasting brilliantly with the snow white bed sheets.

"Quick and clean..." she said, softly, "Professional?"

"Maybe...Maybe not." He said, bending down and wrapping his hand in his sleeve before picking up a small shell-casing that had rolled a few inches under the bed, the thick carpet stopping it from going further. As he lifted it from its resting place something fell from its hollow inside that Ros deftly caught.

It was a thin roll of paper that she delicately unrolled and held between her fingers for them to read,

*****x

"Five stars and a goodnight kiss..." she murmured, "They knew we were coming for him, they got here first." she said, curling her fingers around the note, crushing it.

Lucas replaced the now empty casing under the bed and they both agreed to search the room themselves first before calling Harry and summoning forensics who would swarm over the scene like flies over fresh meat.

"Lucas, I think Harry's instincts about Attia were right, he's leaving us breadcrumbs..." Ros said, quietly, indicating the fresh wood shavings underneath the bed and trying them to the thin, scalpel-like blade in the dead man's hands, shining a torch on the underside of the cabinet to confirm her theory.

"What does it say?" he asked, delicately moving around the bed and crouching down beside her,

"His handwritings not the best." She replied quaintly, "Looks like C1 to me, see what you think." She said, moving aside and handing him the torch.

"...I'd go with that too...C1, what does it mean? Co-ordinates? References to another asset, another location?"

"I don't know, it doesn't ring any bells..." she said, pensively, before straightening up, "Did you find anything else?" he shook his head, "I say we go, let forensics loose, there's nothing else for us here..."

Lucas agreed and they quietly slipped from the house, leaving it exactly the way they had found it, Ros biting the bullet and calling Harry as they ducked into the safety of the car.

"Ros? Lucas? That was faster than I expected..." Harry said, sensing that this conversation was not going to improve his mood and throbbing headache.

"Indeed...Our asset has recently become permanently unavailable to put it delicately." Ros told him, confirming his instincts.

He swore softly under his breath before saying, "How recently?"

"Still warm...I'd say less than an hour." She replied,

"In that respect you were lucky..." Harry breathed, "Anything to go on?"

"A note, five stars and a goodnight kiss; they knew we were coming for him...He knew too, he tried to communicate with us before his death, a message scratched into the wooden lip of the bedside cabinet, 'C1', ring any bells for you?"

"No..." Harry sighed dejectedly, wracking his brains, "Head back to The Grid now Ros, I want details." He said, before hanging up.

"...That went about as well as could be expected." Lucas said, blinking rapidly and shaking his head, swaying slightly in his seat.

She tutted almost inaudibly, before pulling sharply to the left, avoiding the motorway in favour of a narrower side street, startling him,

"Where are you going?" he asked, without too much concern considering, "Being kidnapped by my senior officer wasn't high on my list of priorities tonight..."

"No, but curing your insomnia should be, I'm taking you home first Sleeping Beauty, God knows you need it, you're no use to me in this condition, barely function conscious..."

"Cheers, really though I'm-"

"If you finish that sentence with the word 'fine' you'll be sleeping in a hospital tonight instead of your apartment, your choice." She growled, warningly,

"Fine." He smirked, teasingly, "Take me home if you want sergeant major..."

She squinted at him out of the corner of her eye, the menacing effect ruined by the smile on her lips.

He staggered out of the car as she stopped outside the flat and threw him his jacket, that he failed to catch, prompting her to mercilessly enquire,

"Will you make it up the stairs or do you need me to hold you up?"

"I'll be fine mother." He grinned, closing the door, with a grateful nod.

He was glad for her perception and compulsive 'mama bear instincts', he would never have admitted it but the caffeine had long since worn off and the nights of broken sleep and insomnia had caught up with him. In short he was exhausted and infinitely grateful that she knew him well enough to sense that, a feeling that intensified as he collapsed on the soft mattress in the bedroom.

...

Ros walked purposefully onto The Grid, making a beeline for Harry's office after a quick glance towards the empty desks told her that her team had flocked to places unknown warned that the plague Myers was about to descend upon them leaving her free to infect Harry unmolested, pulling the door open with its usual soft hiss and, also as usual, without knocking.

Harry glowered at her for this as she took the seat opposite him, legs crossed, eyes fixed on her head of section.

"What have you got?" they asked together,

"Ladies first." He said with a smirk, "But perhaps the question should be what you _haven't_; namely, a certain Mr North?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

"He's been sent home for medicinal purposes." She replied smoothly, "Even high functioning insomniacs like Lucas need sleep, one of nature's more irritating demands..."

"Something we should be more concerned about?" Harry asked, watching her carefully, knowing that they had both noticed the younger man's insomnia habit over the past week or so.

She shrugged, "It's not a new concern, occupational hazard of being the FSB's go-to torture victim in Russia for eight years...He's never been able to go more than a month without something keeping him awake at some point, he's dealt with it before..."

"But is he dealing with it now?" he said, quietly, "...Are you worried?"

"No, he was just too bloody stubborn to admit he was exhausted...Also nothing new."

"Who does that remind me of I wonder?"

Ros smiled and changed the subject, giving him a more detailed account of what had happened at the safe house, discovering Attia and the messages that had been left for them.

"What's been going on here? Where is everyone?"

"On exhaustion strike." Harry smirked grimly, "Tariq's getting everyone coffee, Ruth's gone home to pick up a couple of reference books she has that might be helpful..."

"Tell her to bring pizza..." Ros said, stretching and feeling that this would be more useful.

They wandered around The Grid for the next few hours, savouring the relative calm before the storm they knew as coming, tidying things from past operations until a young blond woman in a loose white chiffon blouse marched purposefully into Harry's office with a thin white envelope clasped between her hands.

Seconds after the pods had closed around her, Harry's shout alerted everyone on The Grid and caused Ros and a newly re-caffeinated Tariq to flock to his office.

No-one spoke and no-one had any reason to as they moved towards the desk to read that letter that Harry spread on the desk in front of them,

"Ros, call Lucas, get him over there now." Harry said, hoarsely, to Ros, who already had her phone to her ear, as he ran a hand over his mouth,

"Lucas, get up, get Ruth and get yourselves in here as soon as possible...Be careful...Keep in touch." She told him shortly, before hanging up and turning to the others.

"It's probably too late..." Harry murmured, looking down at the twisted, sickening words printed on the page before them,

Run, run, little bunny run

Under beds when the monsters come

Take her away on angel's wings,

Hurt enough, the canary sings...

A/N: Thank you all for reading and reviewing, if you enjoyed/didn't enjoy let me know why if you can. :)


	5. You Can Look

**Chapter 5**

You Can Look...

Ruth hurried up to the path to the front door, fumbling with the keys held between numb fingers as the jumbled names of authors and titles bounced around like dodgems in her skull, mingling with the information she had already found from scouring the archives at The Grid.

Hurrying into the house, reflexively stepping over marauding cats, she made her way over to the bookshelf at the back of the room, placing her files on the edge of the table and in her haste, misjudging it, causing them to tumble to the floor.

Cursing, she began gathering her papers and piling them awkwardly together, the last one she picked up and inadvertently placed on the top of the pile was the graphic image of what had happened to the unfortunate MI-6 officer. Her eyes lingered on the gruesome fate of the nameless man for longer than she should have let them.

Taking a deep breath she stuffed it into the centre of the folder, finding that this did nothing to remove the picture still dancing, sickeningly, in front of her eyes. Closing them, she took a moment to compose herself before diving into the bookshelf, seeking to lose herself in the only thing that made sense to her on this job sometimes.

She was buried in a mountain of books, quietly making frantic notes when she realised, to her annoyance, that the pages of one she had been working from were fluttering gently in a breeze as though turned by playful, invisible fingers, causing her to lose her page.

Looking up, she noticed that one of the French doors in the room beyond had opened causing the light, floor length curtain to expand and billow into the room before flattening and being sucked outside, giving the impression of a lung from some enormous beast using her conservatory as a ribcage.

Irritated and shaking off a paranoid suspicion by telling herself that she had not closed the door properly after letting the cat out, she pulled it shut, causing the curtain to flatten and the books' pages to lie flat. Calm once more.

On her way back to the table she took the opportunity, now that she was up anyway, to hunt for another book, who's title she could not quite remember, much to her annoyance, her fingers trailing lightly across the stiff spines.

The book she pulled triumphantly from the heart of the shelf never made it to the table, tumbling to the floor from her hands as they jerked upwards in response to the thick, muscular arms that had closed around her chest.

Her scream was muffled in the thick cotton rag that was being pressed over her mouth and nose, the poisonous fumes stealing into her, even as she desperately clawed and struggled with her attacker.

Terror flared momentarily in her chest as she realised that she was losing control of her body; losing her will and her ability to fight as she found herself limply falling into the cold embrace of the man behind her like a rag doll. As her eyes rolled into the back of her head she surrendered completely to the welcome black abyss of unconsciousness.

The next thing she became aware of was intense cold. She shivered and instinctively pulled herself into an even tighter ball, despite the fact that her muscles were already cramped and painful from the position. From the shape of the small, claustrophobic space she had been stuffed, unceremoniously into and the fact that the world was moving beneath her for more reason than dizzy, light-headedness, she deduced, to her delight, that she was in the boot of a car.

There was a thick strip of silver tape, uncomfortably tight across her mouth, not helping her already restricted breathing causing her chest to burn as she felt fear rising in it, her body being wracked by the short, sharp breaths she was attempting to take in her panic.

She let out a helpless moan as she struggled, forcing herself to slow her breathing before she passed out and to calmly assess her situation.

Her head was pounding and she still felt dizzy, the remaining after effects of whatever they had used to knock her out, there were thin cable ties digging into her wrists, leaving her in no doubt that her hands had been bound behind her back, painfully stretching her shoulders.

She closed her eyes, fighting back tears as her panic threatened to overcome her. She could think of a hundred and one ways to get out of this, none of which she could put into practice in her current condition.

She shook her head slightly, trying to clear it, feeling the strange weightless sensation that preceded unconsciousness. She decided she would rather not know, rather not feel, if only for a short time and allowed the black oblivion to overcome her once more.

She was roughly pulled from unconsciousness as she was pulled, none too gently, from the car, her feet slamming into the cold, hard ground, sending shockwaves through her body.

She did not have long to savour the bleak countryside and fresh air before a thick strip of black linen was pulled tied tightly around her eyes and she was forced into a cold, stone building. Her feet struck tiles and she was made to stand still in the centre of the room before her cable ties were cut off and she was left, someone slamming a thick door behind them with an air of finality.

Cautiously, she undid the blindfold, ensuring that she was alone before peeling the tape from her mouth, wincing slightly as it clung to her skin, reluctant to leave, before she looked around her properly, taking in her barren surroundings.

She was in a large cell with very imaginative decor. Stone white tiles covering the floor, walls and ceiling, broken only by the thick, unyielding steel door and a tiny, barred window set high in the wall opposite, its only purpose seemed to be to mockingly remind her that an outside world existed beyond her clinical prison because it sure as Hell wasn't letting any air or light into the stuffy, dark box.

The only feature of note in the room was the floor to ceiling sheet of Plexiglas, splitting the room in two, almost giving the impression that she was in a fishbowl except for the fact that the other half was empty.

Being unable to think of anything else to do, she began pacing the perimeter of her half of the cell, lightly running her fingers over the cold, white tiles, something she stopped abruptly after realising that the spaces between some of the tiles were dyed a pale pinkish-red colour, stained, she was sure, from blood.

She slid, helplessly down the wall facing the invisible one, closing her eyes and berating herself for the only thought currently in her head being that she would quite like a good book and a cup of tea...

She jumped as she heard footsteps and the rattling of keys outside, the muscles in her body reflexively tensing in response to the scraping of a lock being withdrawn. It took her a second to realise that they were not coming for her...Not yet...

Two men dragged a third, clearly unconscious, into the room, leaving him slumped, motionless in the corner furthest from the door and furthest from her, a thin trickle of blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.

She had recognised him immediately and was on her feet, pressed desperately against the invisible barrier between them as she screamed at him, terrified, praying for a response,

"Lucas! Lucas!"

He lay, limp and lifeless as a corpse as she hammered on the unyielding invisible shield.

She could not tell if he was breathing...

Sliding helplessly down the cold, mocking wall, she found her tears falling without permission. If they had Lucas, who else did they have? Tariq? Ros? _Harry_? And who the Hell were 'they' anyway? The Syrians, surely, the Shabiha then, The Angel's Lies... She trembled, memories of the nameless, faceless MI-6 officer unwillingly surfacing as her head unhelpfully told her that, not only had he been killed in a gruesome and horrible manner, but he had been tortured with a skill and precision that had previously disgusted her and now terrified her.

How could _she _survive _that_?

Her thoughts began to run away with her and she caught herself before she descended into hysteria, closing her eyes and forcing herself to take deep breaths.

Quietly muttering out loud, she began to reason with herself, logically arguing out the steps that had led up to this, evaluating and piecing together what she knew already and inferring what she did not, attempting to rule out some of the more terrifying scenarios that had sprung to life and to explain and rationalise her current situation.

"It's only been a few hours and you're already talking to yourself, good start." A voice rasped, hoarsely to her, causing her eyes to snap open again.

"Lucas!" she exclaimed, before narrowing her eyes and saying, "I knew you could hear me you selfish bastard..."

He gave her a lopsided smile, his weak chuckle turning to a coughing fit, subsiding into faint wheezes as he shakily dabbed at the blood in his mouth with a torn shirtsleeve.

"Are you alright?" she asked quietly, concerned.

"I'm fine..." he replied, predictably, though from the sound of it, she was sure he had fractured a rib or two."What about you?"

"I'm fine too..." she replied with a forced smile, "I started talking to myself a long time ago..."

"Very true." He murmured, smiling again, but avoiding laughing.

"What happened?" she asked, quietly,

He closed his eyes, grimacing as he tried to remember, casting his mind back, beginning in his apartment when Ros had called him. Ruth was quiet, allowing him to think first and relive it before he explained.

* * *

"Hello?" he mumbled, before realising he had not answered the call and took a second to register the caller before successfully accepting them, "This is cruel, I thought you sent me home to sleep-"he began, teasingly,

Ros spoke over him, not responding with the acerbic remark he had expected but with taut, curt instructions that hauled him out of bed more effectively than a freight train passing through his living room would have done.

"Lucas, get up, get Ruth and get yourselves in here as soon as possible."

"She's at home I take it?" he asked, already pulling on jeans, knowing that he would therefore be closer to her than anyone else for whatever calamity was unfolding.

"Be careful."

"I'm on my way..."

"Keep in touch..." Sometimes it was more about what she didn't say than what she did...

He had hastily grabbed his car keys and was slamming the door behind him less than two minutes after hanging up on her, thoughts running through his head, wondering what he might find at Ruth's.

By happy coincidence, he and Ruth lived less than ten minutes apart and it did not take him long to reach her house, wasting no time in leaping from the car and sprinting up the front steps only realising on the front porch that he was unarmed. Deciding this did not matter much, he would just have to get creative if anyone stood between him and Ruth, he quietly turned the handle on the door, finding that it was not locked, and slipped inside.

As it turned out however, there was no Ruth for anyone to stand in front of, just a perfectly laid honey trap as he realised a second too late, personal emotions and fear displacing professional common sense and reason.

The unbalanced struggle between himself and three armed men had ended with a needle to the neck, causing him to collapse, twitching in her kitchen, followed by an uncomfortable ride in the boot of a car to the five star accommodation they now found themselves in.

He quietly summarised the events he could remember for her while she listened patiently and ended by apologising for the mess they had left in her kitchen, causing her to laugh, weakly, at his mock sincerity.

"What are they going to do to us Lucas?" she asked, softly, her words sobering them both up instantly.

"I don't know...Depends what they want, they're not going to kill us, not straight away, they could have done that already..."

"So they'll torture us first?" she said, forcing her tone to remain as casual as she could make it in spite of herself.

"Maybe, maybe not...They might decide to use us as bait for bigger fish, or leverage in a trade, who knows?" he replied, carefully,

"We both do. Don't patronize me Lucas." She snapped, "I may not have your all-knowing experience of being in a Russian prison, but I'm not so naive to imagine that we'll get out of this unhurt, I know what they're going to do to us-"she caught herself there, ashamed and upset over her outburst as she watched his eyes drain of any expression, the shutters coming down at her words.

"No, you haven't...I'm not exactly ecstatic about our prospects myself, I just couldn't..." he replied, quietly, trailing off, unable to finish the sentence.

That much was definitely true she thought. He was drawn and pale and looked as though he had lost about a stone in weight since the last time they had met, his eyes giving him away as they searched the enclosed, claustrophobic cell for a way out he knew did not exist, shaking from more than cold...

"I'm sorry..." she whispered, "It's my fault you're here, I shouldn't be-"

"No." He said, sharply, the sudden change in volume making her jump and causing him to continue in a softer tone, "No, it's not your fault Ruth, I would have done the same thing for anyone, so would you...Take it from someone who knows, you start drowning in self-pity, you won't last long..."

She watched him carefully from the corner of her eye, having no idea what this must be doing to him and how he was actually dealing with it.

This was not unusual. He had never been the easiest to read, holding his cards so close to his chest that they were practically sewn into the skin but he had been more distant recently with the others on The Grid, particularly her, since the Albany crisis. This was the closest they had been in weeks...

In truth, she did not know how she felt about him at the moment. In this job betrayal was not something that was easily forgiven and forgotten. He had tried to kill her, whatever his assertions that he would never have hurt her, her head could reason as much as it liked, her instincts still told her not trust him, at least not unconditionally. After so long working the way she did with cold data and absolutes, gut feelings had become few and far between and on the rare occasion when gut instinct told her something, she was inclined to listen.

Reason or not, good or not, _necessary _or not, the relationship between them had been ruined. It was only now she realised how much she had missed what they had had, but miss it or not, there was not a switch in her head that could just be flicked to make everything OK again. After all, how many atrocities did she see every day that were passed off as 'necessary'? And how many of those people did she despise? A mother's grief was not lessoned if someone told her that her child's death had been 'necessary'...

He knew...He knew the damage he had done and the sacrifice he had made, that he had made a sacrifice and that was the only reason she had quietly consented to attempt to tentatively rebuild the wreckage of the trust between them. He had not forced himself upon them, quite the opposite, deliberately distancing himself from The Grid and withdrawing into himself when he was there. The little, thoughtful habits that dogged him were just that, habits. The cakes left on the desks some mornings, their presence always perfectly timed and the fresh mugs of tea that seemed to spontaneously erupt from the earth every now and then were not ways of shoving himself down their throats but were little, unconscious reminders that the man she thought she knew was still there...

She saw him watching her, intense blue eyes seeming to read her thoughts and she was sure that he knew what was running through her head, the same or similar thoughts probably flooding through his own, he looked just as uncomfortable by the shared piece of old normality, that had chosen a bloody prison cell of all places to remind them of what had been, and found herself needing to say _something..._

"...The Albany thing, I...I think I was so angry with you, _am _so angry with you because I was so angry with myself...Angry for caring, for letting myself care, still, about you, so much so that I was upset when you...When we lost you...After everything you had done and I still cried for you, you bastard..." she let out a strange noise between a choked sob and a hysterical laugh, looking at the ceiling before taking a deep breath and continuing, "You had been such a big part of my life, of all of our lives, and we had taken you in, trusted you completely, put our lives and our secrets in your hands everyday and knew, thought, that you would keep them safe...And when it came down to it, I realised that I didn't really know you at all...And I'm not just talking about the identity swap, even without that I didn't, _don't _know you, nothing...In the end, knowing that, that I would have learned more about you at a three hour memorial service than I had in three years with you was worse than having to go to a funeral..."

"...I never really understood funerals..." he said, quietly, and she hoped that this was going somewhere, "They never seemed to be any good for anyone really, if you think about it...Definitely not for whoever they're supposed to be remembering, they're dead; they don't care about the pretty box, or what songs they play or where they end up when it's finished...For me anyway, funerals only ever hurt and upset the people who cared enough to show up to them...That was never something I wanted for the people I loved..."

She watched him carefully, knowing that it had indeed gone somewhere, and now wondering how to respond, "It's not just that though, it wasn't all about hurt, it was about healing too, being able to say goodbye, being remembered for what you had done..."

"I don't want to be remembered for what I've done on this job Ruth...I didn't think it was possible to hurt or betray anyone as much, to ruined so many lives, destroy so many things, lie to the ones I loved, lose so much that I cared about and feel so damn guilty, all for doing the right thing..."

"We seem to live in a world where there is no right and wrong; we just have to do whatever is the lesser of the evils..."

"Trouble is, the lesser of two evils, is still evil..."

"Exactly..."

"I can't be sorry anymore Ruth, to be honest with you, I don't think that I ever was...I _felt _sorry for the outcome, what everyone lost because of what I had destroyed, for the things that I had done but not sorry itself...I'm not sorry that I did it, only that I had to, but I can't keep pretending anymore, I have no regrets..."

"I understand..." she said, softly, "I didn't, and don't hate you for what you did and became...I hated what the price of that had been, and that you had been willing to pay it. I was angry, upset for allowing myself to feel like that in the first place, for losing my trust and faith in you, but not losing faith and trust entirely..."

"Understanding breeds empathy, empathy leads eventually to forgiveness..." he murmured, poetically, watching the strange look in her eyes as he abruptly said, "You should try and get some sleep."

This more than anything else that had happened that day, shocked her, "Sleep?" she demanded, incredulously,

"Well there's not much else to do." He said with a small, teasing smile, "And much like anything else in prison, if you can get it, take it while you can..."

A/N: Thank you all for reading and to all of my reviewers! I'm a little new to writing Ruth, fingers crossed this was OK! If you have a minute I would love to know what you thought of her and of this chapter as a whole.


	6. But Cannot Touch

**Chapter 6**

...But Cannot Touch

Sofia slammed the door of the car as she collapsed into the driver's seat, still fuming. She avoided clocks as she started the engine, not wanting to know exactly how much of her life she had wasted on this...

She was not an impatient person and so, when she had been told that she may have to wait before seeing the Home Secretary, she had calmly settled herself in a chair and proceeded to do just that.

However, three hours after sitting in silence and the patience of a saint would have been tested, and that was not something she received nothing but the mad desire to firmly smash the simpering, pretentious face of the Home Secretary's receptionist into the prissy little pink teacup conveniently positioned directly beneath her nose, when she was told, with poisonous sweetness that 'the Home Secretary was a busy, busy man with many commitments who would be saddened by her wait and would no doubt be trying his very best to see her...'"

Spending another unknown period of time in the office where even the stupid PA's _typing _began to get on her nerves began to make her long for the crowded Russian cells as this was beginning to make those eight years seem like a Mediterranean cruise; and she began to lose patience and had gotten to her feet and told the infuriating PA that she was leaving, she had then taken great delight in wiping the smug smile from her face by proceeding to blackmail her into calling her when the Home Secretary was not a 'busy busy man' to ensure that she saw him the next day by informing her that she knew about her little 'evening activities' with a member of the shadow cabinet...

She began to weave through the crowded London streets, cursing everyone from Harry Pearce to the Prime Minister along with several innocent bystanders in between. She finally managed to negotiate the maze of streets that she loved and loathed in equal measure to return to Thames House.

She stood as the doors of the pods rotated around her before allowing her to enter The Grid. She was enveloped by a dead silence that was not entirely unexpected what _was _unexpected however was the fact that Harry's office also resembled a cemetery.

She picked her way through the rooms before finding them all gathered grimly in the tech suite, Tariq slumped across the desk, Ros pocketing her phone and her own solemn expression reflected on Harry's face giving the room the atmosphere of a wake.

"What's happened?" she asked, looking between them and feeling that her day was about to become considerably more eventful, though not better...

"Ruth's been targeted by the group of Syrian extremists, Ros asked Lucas to check in on her more than half an hour ago, we haven't heard from either of them."

"I go away for a few hours and everything goes to the dogs..." Sofia muttered,

"Did you get anything from the Home Secretary?" Harry asked, quietly, needing some good news.

"I didn't get the Home Secretary, according to his insufferable clerical slut she's calling me tomorrow when the 'busy busy man' has a gap between meeting the PM and having his eyebrows waxed, if she doesn't want her dirty laundry splashed out all over parliament, she'll make sure I meet him tomorrow." She replied, "Have the group made contact yet? Made any demands?"

"No, only this." Ros said, thrusting the poem towards her in disgust.

Sofia skimmed it before looking up and saying

"Why send Lucas? She's at least an hour away from us here..." her eyes were narrowed slightly but her tone was neutral.

"He was at home at the time-"Ros began,

"Shit...We should have heard from them by now." Sofia said quietly, before turning and asking Harry, softly, "How much does she know?"

"How much of a liability is she in other words?" Harry snapped, irrationally,

"Don't start twisting what I'm saying to give yourself an excuse to take your anger out on me, you want to shout at something, go and fling the broken kettle across the room and see if it'll start singing a more acceptable tune." She snarled, "You know that's not what I meant, the more she knows the more danger she's in but also the more valuable she is to them and the more chance we have of getting her back, I ask again, how much does she know?"

"Everything..." Harry replied, bluntly, "Someone at GCHQ started feeding her information about the ship after it began broadcasting strange signals to places unknown before docking in Syria a few weeks ago, before this broke, she'd already uncovered a bloody wasp's nest about it..."

"Alright...What about Lucas?"

"He knew about the same as you."

"Jack-shit then..."

"Why take him then?" Ros broke in, "Why risk being caught for someone who knows nothing when you already have someone who knows everything..."

"Friendly persuasion..." Sofia muttered, "They didn't take Lucas, they took another MI-5 officer, it didn't matter to them who, it could have been any of us...We would all have done for their purposes."

"They'll torture him to make her talk..." Ros said, quietly, seeing the truth of her words and understanding their implications.

Sofia nodded, "Inadvertent torture in Russia that they're using to their advantage here...They know what they're doing which isn't good for either of them..."

"Right, well, standing around wringing our hands and getting nostalgic like old women at a bus stop isn't good for them either..." Harry said firmly, putting aside personal feelings with difficulty, choosing to be section head as opposed to anything more.

"They have something of ours and I want it back in one piece. Tariq can you get anything else from those videos, anything that could tell us where they might be or might have been?"

"I, I don't think so-"he began,

"I don't need you to think Tariq; I need you to know, go back over everything, tear it apart, strip down to nothing, I don't care how long it takes or how many systems you have to crash, get it done."

Ros, Sofia, get yourselves over to Ruth's look over what she was doing before she was taken, then tear the place apart, if there's something there that can tell us where she is, deliberate or accidental, I want it found."

Ros and Tariq had already stood to leave, Sofia paused however and followed Harry back into his office, she spoke softly, making him jump,

"You know what you're asking us to do, don't you?"

"Jesus Sofia, people knock before entering rooms for reasons, isn't it legal in Scotland to shoot someone for sneaking up on you?" Harry snapped,

She shrugged, balancing on the edge of a cabinet, "You get the right, or rather wrong, part of Glasgow on a Friday night 'legal' isn't really of much concern...Stop avoiding the question Harry, do you-"

"Yes of course I bloody well know what I'm asking you to do. I am asking you to find her, to find them both and do whatever it takes to bring them back."

"This isn't just some crime scene, a random London back alley, it's her home, you know what it means in this line of work to start picking through-"

"Well it won't be 'her' home for much longer, dead people can't own property." He snapped coldly, "I would have expected any officer on this team to agree to go rifling through Buckingham Palace and strip search the Prime Minister if there was a chance of finding out where they are but if your 'morals' prevent you I'll be happy to remind you of the location and function of the door!"

"Don't start being flippant with me Harry..." she breathed, dangerously, "You are _not _the only person here who cares about her, who cares about them _both. _It is our job to fall apart and be irrational and promise to move Heaven and Earth for them, it is yours to keep your head, and I think you lost it when you lost her...Find it, or we _will _lose them..."

She turned and left as he closed his eyes and grimaced, realising that she had been taking his temperature and that he had been too busy losing his head to notice what she was sticking into it...

Then again, 'Little Miss Psychology' was reading too much into this, he reasoned, it was perfectly acceptable to suggest that they look into the possibility that something had been left where their officer had been taken, be it a back-alley, the officers apartment or the bloody moon..._That _may have been acceptable, his overreaction to her questioning of it however, had not been. _Bollocks..._He resolved to watch himself around Sofia for the rest of this investigation; she had found that far easier than it ought to have been, although he kept a close eye on her at the best of times anyway...

He had enough mysterious people to contend with with Lucas running around The Grid and he somehow managed to pull it off while being trustworthy or at least he had at one point, Sofia on the other hand...

He sighed and slumped forwards onto the desk, suspiciously cagey or not, 'Miss Marple' had a point, he had lost his head when he had lost Ruth...When had he become so bloody dependent on the woman?

She was a key team member, brilliant at what she did and with an IQ that matched his blood alcohol levels, an outstanding, invaluable officer by all accounts, but that went for most of the members of his section. In the past, if one of them had been taken, it made him stronger, smarter, faster and even more stubborn than usual because he knew this was the only way to get them back, so what was it about her that made him fall to pieces like this?

Well that was obvious, and so irritatingly answered that part of him he had been sure did not exist, that he had reluctantly called a conscience that he seemed to have sprouted spontaneously overnight recently, its presence annoying and its altogether too frequent insights into his long since dormant feelings even more so.

He cared about her. Well he cared about everyone on his team. He didn't inappropriately _propose _to 'everyone' by a recently blown-up colleague's death bed. Well it would never have worked with Lucas...It had never worked with Ruth either. Not for lack of trying. No, she was just a colleague, a valued colleague but a colleague nonetheless. She had always been more than 'just a colleague' to him...He had had dinner with her, once, that hardly made her the bloody love of his life...He had dinner with the Home Secretary too...A lot. He didn't love the Home Secretary. He didn't love-

He stopped himself, shaking his head to clear it. Psychologically analysing his feelings over Ruth at this moment in time would not help her, or his liver, at this rate they would both end up in untimely graves. It would make him have a conversation with her when they found her, yes, but in the meantime it would not help to find her. Sofia was right, he had to pull himself together and pick up the pieces of the car crash that passed for his personal life these days before the wreckage spilled over into his professional one...

* * *

"You alright?" Ros asked, as Sofia pulled herself into the car, driver's side.

She nodded, before unconsciously shaking her head as she said, "They've really gone for the jugular with this one..."

"They know what buttons to push..." Ros agreed darkly, settling herself in the passenger's seat.

"And exactly how hard to push them...What about you? Are you alright?"

"Of course." Ros replied, smoothly, her tone giving away about as much as her mask-like expression.

"You're worried about them..._Both _of them..."

"Are we going to drive or conduct a psychological evaluation?" she demanded, deflecting the statement as it contained a little more truth than her sanity could allow her to admit.

"We're women Ros, no reason we can't do both." Sofia countered in mock cheerfulness, "It's a long drive to Ruth's through London, unless you want me to spend it telling you what you're favourite colour and least favourite alcoholic cocktail reveals about you, humour me..."

Ros pursed her lips, sighed, and wondered, not for the first time, why Sofia had not become either a shrink or a professional poker player, she would have been irritatingly good at both and would have made considerably more money, before answering,

"Yes, I'm worried...The future of this operation and of Britain's relationship in the East depends on Ruth's ability to keep her mouth shut-"

"Bloody Hell; have you and Harry had a test run to see if you're biologically related?" Sofia snapped, shaking her head "Are you trying to tell me that you don't feel anything about what they might be going through?"

"Of course I do...Contrary to popular belief I am not _completely _made of stone, I've worked with her for four years on and off, I, she's a bloody good analyst, God knows who they'll send us if she doesn't come back in one piece, and don't even get me started on what kind of bureaucratic arsehole would replace Harry if he loses his if they've hurt so much as a hair on her pretty little head..."

"So there is something going on between them?" Sofia asked, finding a way to have her suspicions confirmed,

"Who knows?" Ros sighed, "They don't, how are the rest of us mere mortals supposed to comprehend their 'relationship'...Bigger conspiracy than the Kennedy assassination..."

Sofia smirked before saying quietly, "What about Lucas?"

"What _about _Lucas?" Ros snapped, too quickly, "This feelings dissection seems to be consisting of one-way traffic, I would have thought you would have been worried about him, perhaps we should discuss that?"she shot defensively.

"You telling me that you're not worried? There's a good chance that they'll throw him into a cell between torture sessions, not exactly his idea of a relaxing spa break is it?" she retorted, quietly,

"You think he won't be able to deal with it?" Ros asked, glancing sideways, God knew she was worried about Lucas. More so than she was about Ruth, curiously, she was sure that the analyst would hold it together, she was made of sterner stuff than any of them gave her credit for, Sofia was justifying the concerns she had had over Lucas...

"No he'll deal with it...That's what worries me...'Dum Spiro, Spero', I breathe, I hope, it's not just a philosophy, or a demand of the culture of prison, it's a way of life, it's a way of dealing with it, and he will, he'll deal with it, until suddenly he won't...I know what would happen to me in his position..."

Ros didn't push it. For all of Sofia's jokes about them talking, they both knew and respected the line they would not cross.

"We're here." Sofia said quietly, pulling up outside Ruth's house.

They could already see that the front door was ominously ajar.

""It can never be just closed, or gaping open, it's always got to be caught somewhere in the middle, even the doors in our world are bloody politicians..." Sofia hissed causing Ros to smirk as they clambered from the car.

They cautiously advanced up the path, weapons drawn, covering one another as they stepped onto the front porch. Ros was having déjà vu flashbacks to Kahlil Attia right up until the point where they pushed the door open. At the safe house, the things that were too obviously in their places had told her someone unwanted had come calling, here the things that were obviously not in their places screamed the same thing at her.

There were pieces of broken furniture strewn across the floor, the sad splinters of table and bookshelf mingling with the small pieces of chipped glass that glinted like fragmented diamond in the sun that had sprung from the mirror when it had shattered. The occasional neat piles of debris implied that someone had been attempting to clean up when they had been interrupted, presumably by Lucas; they had not done a very good job. Books and papers carpeted the floor and had caused both of them to pause in the doorway and plan their route across the room without disturbing them,

"Looks like a rainforest fell into a shredder..." Sofia murmured drily, looking around at the chaos and hoping that if there was a message, it had been written on something more inventive than paper as Lucas and Ruth would have died from starvation before they found it if that was the case.

"Apparently, Harry doesn't understand how much Ruth can find out when she's been possessed by the spirit of a demonic librarian..." Ros replied,

"Too true..." Sofia muttered in response.

They began to pick through the room, mainly in silence, and soon formed a system for sorting through what was relevant and what was collateral.

They were almost finished in the kitchen and living room when Ros turned to Sofia saying,

"I think most of the drama happened down here but do a quick sweep of the top floors just in case."

Sofia nodded and slipped from the room, padding noiselessly upstairs, leaving Ros alone downstairs to pick through the last of the papers, coming to rest on the same picture of the tortured MI-6 officer that had held Ruth's attention earlier becoming transfixed by it and what it implied about her kidnapped team members, until Sofia's shout from upstairs brought her back to reality.

"If Harry thought we were going to have to tear this place apart for microscopic hidden codes he was wrong." She said quietly as Ros located her in the main bedroom.

One of the large white bed sheets had been strung from the ceiling, huge scarlet letters daubed across the thin cotton surface,

_I trapped them deep in the Devi's Heart, Hell_

_Where sunlight dies and Heavens bouquets scream_

_In beds of heads the picket fence will tell_

_That gardens cannot grow beyond our seams_

_First of two your rose, delicate and strong_

_The dark orchid entwines round her eyes_

_He'll help her hide until she screams our song_

_When the flowers bloom they must both then die_

_But kill your light and then ours survives_

_All we ask the truth, our freedom for theirs_

_An eye-for-an-eye and everyone dies_

_The longer you wait the harsher their prayers_

_And yes, you can look but cannot touch_

_The Electric City will tell as much. _

A/N: Thank you all for reading and reviewing, not much plot advancement in this I'm afraid but hopefully the insights were alright, I found Harry's particularly difficult, if you can I would love to know your thoughts.

A/N2: On another note, if anyone has any tips for improving my woeful poetry I would be delighted to hear your suggestions for improvement :)


	7. Black Ink and Red Tears

**Chapter 7**

Black Ink and Red Tears

Ruth had indeed managed to take Lucas' advice and get some sleep, huddled against the wall of Plexiglas with Lucas directly opposite her, softly humming on the other side. He had not slept.

Not only had he relived all eight years in Russia in as many hours, he was fairly sure he his theory as to why they needed both of them, why they had separated them and what they planned to do was correct and that he was not going to take pleasure from any of these.

Ruth stirred softly as she was hit by reality, grimacing as she remembered exactly what they now entailed...

"Morning..." he murmured quietly,

"Is it?" she asked, blearily, "How can you tell?"

"Can't, force of habit." He said, with a small smile,

"You didn't sleep." She said softly, it was not a question but he answered her anyway,

"No..."

"Are you OK?" she murmured, knowing that it was a stupid question but asking it all the same.

"I'm fine Ruth; really, there are some things I would like to ask you though..."

"Really? What?" she asked, a little taken aback by this, the first part she had anticipated but the second had wrong-footed her slightly,

"How much do you know about this? Honestly?" he murmured,

"Lucas, what if they're-"she began,

"They're not." He said, bluntly, knowing where her reservations lay and knowing better than to tell her exactly why they would not want to find out the truth from them so easily, "Generally?"

"Everything..." she murmured, softly, "I'd been looking into it before, well before all of _this._" She said, gesturing around at the cell.

"Alright..." he said, nodding slowly, she was confirming his suspicions but he was not entirely sure how he felt about that...

"What about you?" she asked quietly,

"Nothing...Only what we've learned in the last few days, nothing they don't already have." He said after a moment's hesitation, knowing that he would have to further explain himself, and knowing how she was likely to react.

"Well then, why go to the risk of taking you too...I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm glad of the company, but I have a feeling there's more to it than that..."

"I think there is..." he said, evasively,

"I should tell you-"She began, watching him carefully,

"No." he said, shortly, still unwilling to share what he had realised,

"Lucas, if they're going to torture you then you deserve to know what for." She replied firmly, he had forgotten the bloody stubborn streak that ran through her.

"I said no Ruth, their plan hinges on only one of us knowing that they want..." he said, quietly, hoping that she would drop it and knowing better,

"What do you mean?" she asked, mouth dry, thinking that she knew _exactly _what he meant, but like him was unwilling to give voice to it.

Resigned to the fact that one of them was going to have to do it and deciding he would rather she didn't, he said, "They'll torture me to make you talk..." his tone was completely flat, his voice emotionless, the only thing giving away his feelings was the poorly concealed terror in his eyes, "That technique won't work if I know." She began to protest again but he cut her off sharply saying, "No Ruth, there's no point in us both being tortured..." Though he knew from experience that what they would put her through, while not physical, would be just as painful as whatever they decided to do with him.

"Lucas I-" she began, a thin film of tears in her eyes that she refused to shed before being interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps outside,

They both tensed simultaneously, but while she felt terrified, Lucas looked for a second as though he was about to hit the roof but cold professionalism and training returned a second later as he turned to face her, his empty eyes frightening her more than screams as he began to speak in a low, fast, urgent whisper,

"Ruth." She was now unable to tear her eyes away from the hard, steel door, wondering how a time had ever existed when she had wished that it would open, "Ruth look at me." She did, "Whatever you hear, whatever you think, whatever they try and make you believe, ignore it. It's never as bad as you think, it's all in your head, don't listen and don't tell them anything, you are in control, you don't talk there's nothing they can do to make you..."

"Lucas I can't-" she said in a strangled whisper, thinking that there were any number of things that they could do to him to make her talk, unable to believe that the words were coming out of his mouth, he would let them torture him to keep her and her secrets safe.

"Yes you bloody well can and yes you will." He said, stubborn determination dancing in the icy blue eyes she could not look away from as she tried to find some solace in them, "God help you Ruth Evershed if I come out of this and find that you've told them so much as the Prime Minister's favourite colour." He said, a manic smile curling his lips, he needed her to do this for him...

"Lucas you-"she tried again, squeaking in fear as the keys sounded in the lock outside,

"I'll be fine, as long as you promise me that you won't tell them anything." He said, a fierce intensity burning in his eyes.

"Lucas-"

The lock was withdrawn into the doors behind them with a loud scrape.

"Promise me Ruth."

"I-"

The handle of the door turned with excruciating slowness, on both sides.

"Ruth, promise me."

"I promise." She gasped, as a group of men burst into the rooms and wrestled them both to their feet,

She screamed and struggled instinctively, he had given up fighting long ago and allowed them to wrench together and bind his hands behind his back.

"It'll be OK Ruth..." he spoke too softly for her to hear him but she could lip-read well enough to know what he had said,

They could do nothing but watch, helplessly as they were both dragged from their rooms, caught between their own panic and their fear of what would be done to the other.

Ruth found herself bundled into another room that looked almost identical to the one she had just left except for the fact that she now had four solid, visible walls surrounding her.

She did not have long to properly examine her inspiring new surroundings before being pushed to the floor. She instinctively flipped onto her back and dragged herself away from her assailants, backing away until her skin recoiled at the icy touch of the frozen tiles behind her.

However, to her surprise, and her suspicion, she was left alone, unmolested once more as the door closed behind her, the loud bang echoing around the cavernous room that seemed very empty not that the mass of black-clothed bodies had left it.

She curled herself into a ball and slid into the cold, hard embrace of the corner of the room, pulling her knees up to her chest as she waited, every muscle in her body contracted in fear, waiting for the sounds of screams and knives and bruised and broken skin.

None came.

She shivered and refused to allow her tense body to release the adrenaline, still waiting for the horror she knew was coming, sure that she would need it before the day was done, that they were trying to lull her into a false sense of security and that she would not let them.

The door burst open without warning and she squeaked involuntarily, terrified by the prospect of what could enter.

Two men walked calmly into the room, holding a low wooden table between them, ignoring her as they set it against the wall to her left, a third figure followed and placed a laptop on tip before she was left alone again, without any of them so much as looking at her, never mind saying anything.

She waited, watching the new additions to her room with a mixture of confusion and suspicion, as though expecting them to explode without warning.

The door opened once again and she braced herself as a tall, slim figure in a long black velvet trench coat stepped into the room with the grace of a panther, holding a sturdy wooden chair in front of him and placing it a little to the left of the table and laptop but facing her.

Two men entered the room behind him and pulled her to her feet, dragging her towards the first man before forcing her to her knees in front of the laptop before binding her wrists tightly with cable ties, though thankfully in front of her body.

Not knowing whether to speak first or not, she opted for taking Lucas' advice and ignored everyone in the room, focussing on a pair of tiles between her knees.

"What is your name?" he asked, quietly.

He had a soft, lilting, melodic voice with the texture of smooth honey, despite the fact that it fell pleasantly on her ears, it sent shivers up her spine, the quiet control frightening her more than if he had shouted or struck her.

"You know where I live but you don't know my name?" she replied, daringly, looking at him for the first time as the sudden adrenaline high removed her of fear and found something close to satisfaction in his beetle black eyes.

One of the men moved forwards and made to strike her for her cheek and disrespect but the man in the chair calmly raised a few fingers and he froze,

"She showed courage and spirit, she should not be punished for that." He told him quietly,

He turned back to her, his cold black gaze seeming to x-ray her.

"Ruth..." she found herself saying, almost without permission, not realising the hypnotic control this man seemed to have over everyone in the room, including herself.

"Ruth..." he repeated, quietly, "Ruth Evershed, senior intelligence analyst at MI-5, Section D, I believe." He murmured softly, as though reading from her CV at an interview.

She nodded, but found herself unable to speak and did not dare look at him again.

"And I also believe that _he_, is your co-worker, Lucas North?" she said matter-of-factly.

He had opened the laptop to reveal a video link to a webcam in another room as he had spoken Lucas' name.

Lucas too had been forced to his knees in a tiled room, but his hands had been bound to a thick wooden bar above his head, arms stretched out to either side, as though he were on a cross, wrists already beginning to weep blood from his bonds. He knew better than to struggle against them but even without that, the way in which he had been bound was uncomfortably stretching his body, pulling his back taut.

"I'm going to ask you some questions Miss Evershed, if you refuse to answer them than you will have someone cause considerable pain to your friend on your behalf." He told her, calmly, as though reading out instructions to a board game he was teaching them.

A thin, wicked, silver dagger was produced on screen and Ruth gasped and covered her hands with her mouth as it was drawn, without warning, up the inside of Lucas' shirt, slitting it tangibly close to the skin.

However the scalpel-like blade passed cleanly through the dark blue material without leaving a mark on his pale skin below, the two halves falling harmlessly to his side like wings, forcibly reminding him of something that French President Sabelle Dore had done to him, though he was fairly certain this would not end as well. The fallen material exposed the little black churches clustered together on his back, an eternal reminder of the eight years he had spent in Russia that he was having rather current flashbacks of already.

As though reading their minds, the dark stranger opposite Ruth told her smoothly,

"Your friend has already suffered much, there are not many men who could have survived in a Russian prison, I have respect for that, and respect for him, so please, simply answer my questions and do not hurt him..."

"Can, can he hear us?" Ruth asked, quietly, knowing full well that she would be able to hear him...

"Yes, but I would not advise attempting to communicate with him." He said, silkily, before clapping his hands together suddenly, making her jump and continuing in a business-like tone, "Enough, let us begin. Miss Evershed, what do you know about the ship named Hermes' Calls, currently docked in the Syrian port of Latakia?" he asked in a measured voice, as though asking when her birthday was.

"Nothing." She replied in a strangled whisper, her eyes fixed on Lucas, terrified as to what they would now to do him because of what she had said.

He sighed, "I know you're nervous Ruth, so, for this question only, I will allow you to answer again."

"Nothing." She said again, still unable to tear her eyes away from Lucas.

He sighed again and flicked his hand forwards, almost lazily, a simple gesture with horrific consequences.

She watched as the muscles in Lucas' back contracted in anticipation, neither of them knowing what he would now have to endure and as he fought to make himself relax, knowing that the tension in his body would not help whatever was about to happen.

He hissed in pain and shock as the razor-sharp blade delicately began to trace along the outline of one of the churches on his back. The way his wrists were bound and the way his body reflexively tensed in response to the gentle bite of the dagger caused the skin to split further into a sinister red smile.

Ruth's hands sprang to her mouth as she felt the skin on her back crawling in sympathy, but she pressed her lips together and closed her eyes, refusing to speak.

"Look!" her captor barked, suddenly at her, raising his voice for the first time, though he still refrained from physically touching her, "If you are can decide to do this to him, to put him through this, then you can watch it." He snarled at her.

Afraid of what might be done to Lucas if she refused, she forced her eyes open, feeling tears in them that she refused to spill.

The dagger had finished tracing the outline of the first of the little churches, distorting the beautiful design as the tears of scarlet began to fall. The thin knife moved to begin a second church and she found herself crying out in spite of herself,

"No."

The knife froze, so did Lucas. He did not speak and all she could do was tell herself that he had made her promise, that she _had _promised not to talk, she would stick to that, hold on to that whatever happened, if only to give herself something to hold on to.

"You wish to tell me that you know details of the ship in our port?" he asked mockingly,

"I can't..." she breathed, trembling, more to Lucas than this mysterious stranger that she now loathed.

"Well then..." he said,

The second incision was made, worse than the first as he knew what was coming and he howled as the blade pierced his skin and Ruth found tears fall from her eyes, blurring the horrific images in front of her but not the sounds of the tormented man that seemed to be causing her physical pain.

"Stop it." She said, tearing her streaming eyes from the screen and fixing them with hatred on the man opposite her.

"You are the one to decide what does or does not happen to him Ruth." He told her, his thin mouth twisting into a cruel smile, "Why is the ship in Latakia port?" he asked coldly over Lucas' screams, his torturer not stopping while the questions were asked,

"I don't know-Please!" she begged, struggling to contain her crying as Lucas' ordeal continued agonizingly in front of her.

"What is the purpose of the ship in Syria?" he demanded, seemingly oblivious to the tortured man's cries.

"I don't know, I swear I don't know _please_." She choked through her tears, half of the tattoos on Lucas' back had now been split open by the wicked knife and still it went on.

"Who has ordered that ship to be in Syria?" he continued, as relentless as Lucas' suffering.

Every time he spoke it was in that same calm, measured tone that made Ruth want to throttle him. Lucas was now beginning to mutter, incoherently, in Russian, the broken snatches that she could make out made her blood burn and her tears run faster as his torturer finished the sixth church with agonizing slowness and began on the seventh as she forced herself to answer,

"I can't, I don't know what you're talking about, please, I can't, please, please stop..."

By the time she had managed to gasp her answer between the sobs that were wracking her fragile frame and almost gagging as well as blinding her, all eight of Lucas' churches had been split open, revealing their grinning, crimson insides to her and she was verging on the edge of hysteria.

He abruptly slammed the lid of the laptop down, finally ending her sightless viewing of Lucas' torture. As suddenly as they had appeared, the table, chair and laptop were removed along with their owners, leaving her rocking slowly back in forth in a heap on the floor, tears pouring uncontrollably from her eyes allowing herself to completely fall to pieces, not caring about the consequences.

The door opened once again but she did not have the strength to react and attempt to protect herself from whatever they Hell they decided to do with her next, not having the will to care anymore...

What they did however she _did _care about. The two men dragged Lucas into the room and threw him onto the floor less than a foot from her, shaking and bleeding, before leaving them alone however, the tall, stranger who had tormented Ruth, paused,

"Look at what you did to him, _look_!" the voice hissed, poisonously in her ear.

A/N: Hopefully quite a powerful chapter, I tried to balance it between not enough and too much so fingers crossed this worked OK, thank you all for reading and reviewing!


	8. The Sadistic Chess Player

**Chapter 8**

The Sadistic Chess Player

Tariq was quietly making himself tea in the tiny break room, trying to keep himself busy. He had come up empty on the videos; he had picked through every second of them, stripped it back down to source code and still found nothing. When he had been forced to tell Harry, the other man had simply sighed and said that he hoped Ros and Sofia had found something...

They were still waiting for them and Tariq had come to the conclusion that either Ruth's house was in a Hell of a state or Sofia and Ros had both been taken too...If it turned out to be the latter he had already decided to call in 'Apocalypse Protocol' and emigrate to a deserted Caribbean island with a portable Wi-Fi router...

He had lost count of the number of cups of hot liquid he had forced into himself that day, knowing only that he had drunk enough coffee to force him on to tea and not enough of the latter to switch back. He poured to the water from the kettle into his mug as habit forced him to pick up his phone that, coincidentally, chose that moment to ring, almost causing him to drop it into the cup of water.

"Ros?" he asked, tentatively,

"Tariq...Find pen and paper."

Tariq quietly folded up the sheet of paper he had hastily scribbled down Ros' words on and made his way towards Harry's office, Ros on hold in his pocket waiting for marching orders from the boss.

This was the one thing he had been avoiding since Ruth and Lucas had been taken, entering the empty heart of The Grid that he was now being forced to walk across. He and Harry had been able to closet themselves in their own little oasis' of normality on The Grid, treating their respective 'offices' like nuclear bunkers and refusing to leave them and confront reality.

And reality, or so Tariq thought, sucked, big time...

The Grid was not The Grid without Lucas' mysteriously calming presence in the corner or Ruth's quiet brilliance, surrounded by a wall of books and notes that only she could understand their very own little self-contained encyclopaedia...

He berated himself for thinking of them as though they were already dead...

"Harry, message from Ros and Sofia, they're found another poem at Ruth's." He said, knocking hastily after entering the room in response to Harry's glower, before showing him the copy of the poem.

Harry skimmed over it, just enough to read the words and give his brain half a chance to vaguely process their meaning before snapping his eyes up to meet Tariq's and saying,

"Do you still have Ros on the phone?"

Tariq nodded fishing her out of his pocket,

"Ros?" Harry began,

"About bloody time." Was the charming, as ever, response,

"Yes, it's about bloody time that you at least made an effort to learn the meaning of the word 'patience' Rosalind, I need you back here, both of you, as soon as you can."

"On our way..."

Tariq awkwardly offered to make them both coffee, being unable to save his now stone cold cup of tea, before the others returned, Harry accepted, if only to have the office to himself for a few minutes to think before chaos returned in the form of Ros.

He looked again at the hasty, scribbled copy of the words. Apart from anything else, their author seemed to be enjoying playing with them, watching them all frantically dance to whichever little rhyme was left for them.._.He won't be enjoying his bloody games when we find him..._The only thing that took precedence over national security was his team. It didn't matter if he had to save the world first, anybody fucked with _his _people and all of Hell would descend upon them, one way or the other...

He thanked Tariq distractedly for the coffee that appeared, hovering under his nose a second later and watched as he awkwardly retreated to the obviously empty expanse of desks beyond. He knew that he felt guilty for not having been able to find anything on the video clips. He also knew that he should talk to him but at the minute he barely enough motivation to keep himself going never mind summon an uplifting pep-talk from nowhere, and so, he sat, closeted away in his office until the soft hiss of the pods announced Ros and Sofia return.

Harry stood and jerked his head towards the meeting room, knowing that he would not need to do anything else for them to understand.

They were only two down but their absence made the airy meeting room seem enormous, Harry could practically hear his voice echoing around it as he said,

"What is that?" he asked Sofia, indicating the large mass of neatly folded mass of neatly folded white cotton she had in her arms.

"A missing piece." She replied, unfurling it and spreading it out on the table, revealing it to be the sheet from Ruth's.

Somehow, the words looked worse to Harry and Tariq scrawled across the sheet in the large, blood red letters.

"What do you mean?" Tariq asked her quietly after they had all taken a second to re-examine the crisp, white sheet.

"We're missing _something." _She replied helpfully, "There's something about this that doesn't feel right, there's more to it than we have, I'm sure of it."

"What?"

"The point of _missing _something Tariq is that you don't know what it is until you find it." Ros clarified with poisonous sweetness.

"Well for lack of a better place to start, the meaning's fairly obvious..." Harry growled, "give us what we want or we'll torture and kill them."

"Yes, when you put it like that I can't for the life of me think why they've chosen to phrase it like this instead..." Ros replied, acidly,

"They're toying with us Ros, and what that involves doing God knows what to our people there are only so many times they can stick their head in the lion's mouth before it bites back, no matter the consequences." Harry said, grimly,

"Quite...So, if you were them, what would you have done by now?" Sofia asked quietly, studying the poem as she spoke.

"Made a specific demand to us, offer to trade information for whatever's left of Ruth and Lucas..." Tariq said, softly,

"Exactly, they're equal opportunity terrorists, no reason they can't torture them while politely asking us the same things, as long as they get what they want anything goes..." Ros muttered darkly,

"...So why haven't they? Why wait?"

"You think there's a demand in here? A message we're missing?" Harry asked softly, intrigued.

Sofia saw codes and ciphers everywhere, something that was tolerated because more often than not she was right...

"I think there's something." She replied stubbornly,

They all began to pick through the poem in their own ways, in Ros and Harry's case, silent contemplation from a distance, in Sofia's making frantic notes and playing with the words and in Tariq's, draped across the table, carefully tracing each scarlet water as he deliberately re-read the poem.

"Oh." He said, withdrawing his fingers abruptly and rubbing them together, staring, intrigued by the greasy substance that now adhered to them.

"What is it?" Sofia asked, curiously,

"I don't know..." he said, slowly, "It's oily, but it kind of reminds me of jelly..."

Harry could practically see the light bulb exploding over her head as she said, quietly to no-one in particular,

"Do we have a black light?"

"I think we've got someone in the tech suite somewhere..." Tariq muttered, leaving hastily as she widened her eyes when he failed to act instantly to his words, returning a few minutes later with a rather unwieldy lamp.

"This isn't modern day codes and ciphers, it's old school invisible ink...Kitchen style." She said, breathlessly, plugging the lamp in, "Some everyday substances can be used, for example, oranges, their juice will dry into paper clear until it's heated, and _Vaseline" _she continued, with a triumphant smile as the bright blue words were illuminated, "fluoresces under UV-light."

They all examined the newly revealed message and felt a little disappointed, three out of the four of them having no idea what it meant,

"It's an IP address!" Tariq exclaimed, "They're giving us access to a private server."

"Well then, get a laptop..." Ros said, as everyone paused to digest this

Tariq fetched one from another room and they set it up, ensuring that it was isolated from the main network, to prevent any potential viruses from corrupting the entire system. He keyed in the address and they were greeted by a white screen, blank save for the box in the centre: MI-5 CONTACT NUMBER:. A flashing white cursor expectantly waited on the other side of the words.

"Give them this." Ros said, fishing a disposable phone that had been meant for Kahlil Attia from her pocket, "He won't be needing it..."

Tariq quickly keyed the number into the box and hit enter, as the page refreshed they were greeted by two boxes for 'ID' and 'pass-code' sitting beneath a message that read insolently, '_Thank you, we will be in touch when session one is complete...' _

"Session one..." Ros repeated, mouth dry.

No-one dared to answer the unasked question.

As it turned out, they did not have to wait long for the completion of 'session one' as a few minute later the phone received two separate text messages containing an ID and pass-code respectively,

Tentatively, Tariq punched them into the computer and upon pressing enter was confronted with another screen,

YOU CAN LOOK

BUT CANNOT TOUCH...

Below this was a video link.

"Open it..." Harry instructed quietly,

Tariq wordlessly obeyed, two side-by-side videos were brought up, each showing nothing but a white tiled room...

"Oh shit..." Sofia muttered, turning away from the screen in disgust, realising what it was a second before the others were harshly informed,

"They're alive..." Tariq breathed as Ruth and Lucas were forced in front of the cameras.

"I don't think that's the point somehow Tariq..." Ros muttered

They heard a smooth, honeyed voice explain matter-of-factly to Ruth what the consequences of her refusing to answer their questions would be. She looked pale and terrified but also determined. Lucas had lost the will to feel anything about these situations a long time ago...

After Ruth had given her first answer and stuck to it, beginning Lucas' torture, Tariq made to switch it off, looking sickened, Sofia stopped him before he could however, saying softly,

"No, remember, 'look but can't touch' we can't interfere with this, if it's live, they'll kill one of them, it's all about appearances and control..."

"And besides, we need to know what they say..." Ros murmured, even her ice queen persona was being tested by this and her voice almost shook as she spoke.

"I don't know how they're holding it together..." Tariq muttered, staring, transfixed at the screen.

"Because they have to..." Sofia replied quietly, flinching at the howls from the laptop and the subsequent flashbacks, "That technique's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness because, while you don't want to be responsible for your partner's torture, you don't want to be the one to let them down and cave in either. They'll have known what was coming, they'll have agreed not to say anything...She's telling the truth, she _can't _say anything..."

They forced themselves to sit through the entire torture session that ended as abruptly as it had begun, with the screen suddenly cutting to black, making them all jump.

"What happened? Why did it cut out?" Tariq demanded, fearfully,

"Wind it back a little." Sofia said, softly, reluctantly, Tariq obliged, "Laptop being closed, they stopped, session over."

"Why?" Ros asked, coldly, "Neither of them were unconscious or dead..."

Sofia shook her head, "It's intelligence, tactics, bastard knows what he's doing. If you want to get something out of someone in an interrogation situation like that you need to know how to play it or they clam up and you get nothing, he knows that, he knows that there's no way in Hell he's getting another word out of her in that situation, he knows it's psychologically a better bet to stop there, give them a _reprieve..._That's how Stockholm Syndrome forms, lack of punishment, apparent prevention or premature suspension of torture is taken as an act of kindness, they would have been expecting that to continue in the same way we were. That tells you he's cunning and that he's patient, careful, the sadistic chess player, he knows _exactly _what he's doing to them..."

The black screen flashed suddenly, drawing their attention as it refreshed itself, they all turned away from it, the feeling of disgust echoed through them all at the innocent little word confirming the end of the video,

_Replay. _

Ros took the lid and slammed it down violently onto the keyboard before turning away from the table and taking a few steps in a small circle to do _something _to attempt to disperse her angerbefore her colleagues witnessed the first case of spontaneous human combustion...

"The thing is...I don't think anybody won or lost anything from that little interrogation, I think it was all done for appearances, for our benefit..." Sofia whispered softly,

"What do you mean?" Ros asked, sharply, sickened by the idea that they had gone through that for nothing,

"Think about it, none of the questions were particularly in-depth or well thought out were they?"

"She's right..." Harry muttered, "They didn't ask anything they didn't know or couldn't strongly infer...Of course she knew about the ship's presence in Syria, anyone in this country with an ear and a television knows; they know that the ship is controlled from London, otherwise we wouldn't be in this bloody mess...The only question that might have been worth asking was 'why'..."

"Why indeed...Do _we _know why?" Ros asked, quietly,

"No, we don't...We've got someone coming from six and the MOD tomorrow, in the meantime we don't know why, and I want to..." Harry growled, "There is a little piece of this country floating in a warzone in the Mediterranean and I want to know exactly which jumped up little shit sent it there and _why..._I want to know why two of my best officers have been taken and are being held and tortured in this country and why we are allowing this to happen because our government have not seen fit to give us the tools to prevent Britain from becoming embroiled in another war in the East and bringing them back. And I want to know why they are out there completely isolated without a hope in Hell of making it out of this alive and why we have no way to contact their captors-"

As if in answer to these prayers, he was cut off as the phone rang.

A/N: I do find The Grid scenes harder to write and I'm not sure if this chapter worked to well, I would be grateful for your thoughts...Thank you all for reading and reviewing!


	9. The Aftermath

**Chapter 9**

The Aftermath

"_Look at what you did to him, look!" _The words echoed around in the room and in her head long after their owner had left...

She crawled across the tiles towards him and gently placed her hands, still bound, on his shoulder. The feverish skin below burned to the touch and he jerked away from her, though she thought, hoped, that this was reflexive and not a conscious decision on his part...

She could do nothing but murmur softly to him, hoping that her tone was more soothing than her empty words. His limbs continued to tremble no matter what she did, though less so as time went on and more as a result to cold and adrenaline withdrawal than anything else.

He would not, or could not, move from the protective position he had curled into upon being first dragged into the cell and it had given her a chance to briefly examine his wounds. None of the cuts had been deep, barely penetrating the first layer of skin, that had not been their intention. The seamless precision with which they had been drawn into the skin terrified her.

They sat in quiet companionship for what felt like hours; neither of them needing to do or say anything other than exist where they were to comfort the other. The first time he stirred was when he felt the thick, hot liquid gently dropped onto his shoulder.

"Ruth..." he rasped, his voice hoarse and raw but the concern behind the word was still discernible through the hurt.

"Oh..." she murmured, realising what had alarmed him as he pushed himself into a sitting position, wincing, with a slight groan and gently wiped the drops of her blood from his shoulder.

The cable ties that had been tightly bound around her wrists to begin with had dug deeper and deeper into her skin until they had broken in during her violent struggles and pleas during the interrogation, she had not noticed until now...

"Here." He said, quietly, fumbling with thick fingers in his pocket before pulling out three pens, a fine marker and two ballpoints, he used one of these to prise apart the cable ties, tenderly peeling them from her skin when they snapped so as not to cause any more damage.

"Thank you..." she whispered in relief, rubbing cautiously at the frayed edges of her wrists.

"You're welcome..." he murmured, gently placing a hand on her arm, "I'm sorry, I should have noticed sooner..."

"Well I think you were a little too busy." She said, without thinking, in shock that he was concerned about a few scrapes on her wrists considering,

She watched, without breathing, for a few seconds as he reacted to her off-hand remark, relieved when he gave her a weak smile and said,

"That I was..."

She smiled faintly as well, amazed that the muscles in her face still remembered how to do it, before finding herself saying,

"Lucas I-"

"Was amazing..." he interrupted quietly but firmly, giving her shoulders a soft squeeze.

She was glad that he had interrupted her as she had absolutely no idea what to follow the "I" up with, nevertheless she still felt painfully guilty for not taking the chance to stop his torture, whatever he had said, her stomach twisted as she watched him wince and pull on a light, white cotton shirt, and did not believe that what he was saying was really how he felt.

"No..." she breathed, actually managing to say less in her second attempt than in her first.

"Yes...I know how you feel Ruth, because that's how they want you to feel, notice how he told you from the first words he spoke to you that everything was your fault, that you were responsible that you were making them do everything...I could sit here and tell you that you did the right thing, that you did what I wanted, that I don't blame you and that you were protecting your country, doing your job and while all of that would true, it would mean about as much as me reciting pi to one hundred decimal places...You need to think about it and come to your own conclusions, it's done, and you wouldn't have done it if you didn't agree with it at the time, there's no point agonizing over semantics now. The rules are different in here Ruth, this world is not the one you've lived in for so long, it has no history, no memory, the sessions are like dice, you always have to roll and you always have to play , if you come out the other side alive with no regrets, you've won, whatever you've lost, you need to catch up fast or we'll both suffer the consequences later...And by that I mean what Harry will do to us if he finds out we've been selling secrets to the Syrians..."

Somehow, he had actually managed to make her feel better, something she had not believed possible as she muttered,

"I think this was supposed to work the other way around, me comforting you..."

"I'm an old hand at this torture malarkey." He said, mock casually, before catching the flicker in her eyes and taking her arm as he said, firmly, "Don't make the mistake of thinking that what they did to you wasn't torture Ruth it was and nine out of ten times, psychological torture is worse than knives and pain..."s

She nodded, softly and murmured, "What now?"

"Now, we sleep." He said, quietly, something that seemed to be his default setting in here, draping his jumper around her shoulders, ignoring her protestations that he would be cold.

"I can't..." she murmured.

Yes, she was exhausted, but she could not bring herself to lay down and close her eyes; God only knew what nightmares would come in those darkened hours of vulnerability.

"Please Ruth, trust me...If you won't, I can't..." he whispered softly to her,

The last five words were the closest thing he had ever come to showing weakness and vulnerability, the only words that had expressed a true depth of emotion, the first glimpse at the cracks behind the flawless mask that reminded her of the broken man that haunted his deep, sightless eyes.

She obliged, tentatively curling against him in the corner of the room, their bodies pressed close together for warmth and comfort.

They both lay quietly in the dark and in the quiet, and both managed to sleep. Lucas quietly peeled himself away from her however, when she had been able to sink into something that would resemble proper sleep and he was afraid that his continual jerking and terror fuelled outbursts would wake her. He gently peeled off the white shirt, the cheap cotton had been rubbing at the fresh wounds on his back and small spots of red blood had begun to seep through the thin lining, he strung it from a protruding nail on the window bars before sitting down, cross-legged in the centre of the room, elbows on his knees, head in his hands, eyes closed, thinking...

Ruth blearily and reluctantly pulled herself from sleep, eyes fluttering open as she wearily pushed herself upright, noticing that Lucas had left her at some point during the night, leaving her to wake up to his pale skin being framed against the white, tiled walls, the thin red lines accenting the black ink etched into his skin.

However, it was not the ink on Lucas' back that held her attention as she began to look around the cell, noticing that she was awake again; he hastily slipped the light shirt back over himself, loosely covering his body without fully buttoning it up, "Sorry..." he murmured, softly,

"What is it?" she asked, staring at the walls that were now covered in an intricate landscape, done in black against the white tiles.

"Old habits..." he said, flushing,

"It's beautiful..." she said, quietly, she did not know that this had been something he had had a talent for, 'creative artist' was never an impression he had given her, "Where is it?"

"Home..." he said, quietly, before clarifying, "It's where I grew up...Well, how I remember it anyway, probably doesn't look anything like that anymore..."

"How..." she said, weakly,

He shrugged, embarrassed, and held up the thin black marker he had taken from his pocket the day before when he had been looking for something to remove her cable ties with and explained, abashed, "It was something that started in Russia...Insomniacs often end up being very creative people." He said, with a rueful smile, "It was more than that though; it was my own little rebellion, filling the cell with images from home, every morning they would come in, wash the walls, give me a blank slate to start from again, it gave me a little control over something, gave me quite the reputation as a tattoo artist as well, that makes you valuable, and if you've got the balls to do it, makes you respected...It's all about surviving..."

She nodded, understanding, unable to tear her eyes away from the delicate designs, tenderly placed on the walls, she turned back to him and said, "It was always something that, interested me, but I never wanted to ask, it seemed rude...Your tattoos I mean..." she said, awkwardly trailing off.

He nodded slowly, and joined her on the floor of the cell, "Well, since we have nothing better to do...The iconography of it is fascinating really..."

"I can imagine..." she said, quietly, watching him, cautiously. He rarely shared any information about himself willingly, particularly if it related to his time in Russia but he did not seem to mind discussing this...

"It's funny...It started off as something that I had to do...Tattooing in there, it's not a fashion, or even art, it's a culture, it means something, it means that you belong, that you are worthy, gives you respect...And it's not about belonging in the typical sense, you didn't belong in high school you probably didn't have many friends and got kicked about a bit, you don't belong in there, you die..."

"It was something that you were forced to do, more than you wanted to then?" she asked,

"Yes and no." He replied, with a cryptic smile, "Initially it was something I did because I felt that I had to...One of the first things I got was 'Dum Spiro, Spero', I breathe, I hope, it's more than a casual phrase or even a philosophy, it's an instruction manual for how to survive in there, but at the time I didn't realise that, it was something I had done because I had to, hence the reason it ended up on my back, somewhere I couldn't see it, didn't have to acknowledge it and everything that came with it, same for the churches..."

"What changed?" Ruth asked, thinking of Blake's intricate 'The Ancient of Days' emblazoned on his chest, something that seemed to be more personal than simple churches and Latin phrases.

"I did..." he said, with a bitter laugh, "My situation changed...The first tattoo I initiated was the print of the manacles on my arm, the other ones I was taken to a tattoo artist, sat down and asked where I wanted it, this one, I asked for..."

"Why? What does it mean?" she asked, quietly,

"The tattooing is a system, its purpose is such that you can look at a man, see his tattoos and understand what kind of person he is, based on that alone. It's not only the design that matters either, but the positioning, for example, I have an eight pointed star on my arm, eight points, eight years, but also, to a lesser extent, resilience and determination. If the stars are placed on the knees it implies that the prisoner will 'bow to no man', some tattoos are forced, humiliation tattoos, for example, a dagger on the neck implies sexual assault of a minor, it's not something that can be hidden, everyone then knows what that prisoner is charged with...All of the tattoos I have, have cultural prison meaning and the looser personal meaning for me...The manacles in a prison sense, mean that the bearer has been sentenced to life, a coil of barbed wire means the same thing, to me, it means acceptance, learning to take what your dealt and play with it, whatever it may be, to accept your fate without complaint and without hiding from it..."

"Something must have happened for you to get that done..." she said, quietly, just as intrigued by this as he was,

"Yes...I'd been imprisoned for about three years, without a whisper of the outside world, never mind home, Arkady Kachimov came for a friendly chat, he had been delicately seeding hints about turning me, sending me home, because Britain, and Harry in particular, didn't seem exactly desperate to bring me back...He told me that Harry had had the option to free me, to end everything there and that he hadn't taken it...All Kachimov told me was that Harry had practically signed my life away with ease, that I was going to spend the rest of my life in a Russian prison and that I had Harry Pearce to thank for it...I got the tattoo a few hours after that, I was accepting my fate..."

"That can't be true..." Ruth whispered, horrified by the idea of this,

"It was and it wasn't..." Lucas said, carefully, "Harry had had the opportunity to get me out, but I wouldn't have accepted their terms, they didn't give him a choice..."

"What did they want?"

"High level sleeper assets involved in the Sugar Horse operation, seeded within Russia...They didn't know exact details but they knew that there was a Sugar Horse asset buried deep within the government, they wanted their names...Harry refused..."

"Jesus..." she breathed, before narrowing her eyes, "Why would they do that? Why ask for something they know they'll never get?"

"Tactics..." Lucas said, simply, "Psychologically breaks me, I feel as though my country's abandoned me, that the man who sent me to that Hell hole in the first place has abandoned me, makes it easier for them to turn me, and for Harry, makes him feel guilty, so the next time they come a calling, he feels as though he has no choice, even though their demands are still ridiculous..."

He shifted, restlessly, the shirt sleeve slipping to reveal a tattoo he had not spoken about, "What about the ship?"

"The ship represents freedom, a desire to be free, and not just from prison, from the entire system...Another personal choice one from me, though when I say that, you couldn't exactly wander up to a tattoo artist and flick through a book before picking something, you had to have been deemed worthy of what you wanted, having an unworthy tattoo, something that was a lie, for example tattooed tears implying you've killed someone, if you're found to be lying, they'll cut the tattoo out of your skin."

"Does the ship mean anything else to you?" she asked, "You said some of them have two meanings..."

"For me it reminded me that I had always travelled, never fixed in any one place for too long, not just physically, in this job, you spend a lot of time emotionally travelling, trying to remember who you're supposed to be that morning, but it also reminded me of home, pretty unoriginal, Britain being an island, but also distance and loss, being so far away from everything and everyone that you love, knowing that they're only getting further away, like watching a ship sail away from a harbour, it reminded me of the sacrifices I had made, of what I had lost and of what it was replaced with..."

This was something that Ruth could drink to...She remembered being the one on the boat, sailing away from everything, her job, her friends, her life, and Harry, Harry standing on the harbour watching her sail away from him...

"The passage, on your forearm..." she said, hastily, for something to say, "Say nothing, hear nothing, and saying nothing to nobody?"

He smiled, "Correct, excellent prison motto...Everything you want to know about life in prison, surviving in it, what to do what not to do, it's in there somewhere. Another cultural thing, ties in with the Dum Spiro Spero, don't give up, keep your mouth shut, head down and you'll survive...Good life lesson too actually, now that you come to think about it..."

"I take it they tie in with the 'Gnothi Seauton'?" she asked, curiously,

"'Know Thyself', funny that one, really...They spend all this time having all of these rules and quirks and cultures that you must abide by our you'll have your throat slit in your sleep, but then they go and tell you not to lose yourself in the system...And it's a system that's easy to get lost in, more political mind games than those peace talks, chew you up, spit you out and who gives a damn if you make it or not...It was something that struck a chord with me though, remember who you are, don't lose yourself for anything, field officers should have it tattooed, might remind them not to let the system destroy them..."

"It must have been strange for the people who had known you...I can't really imagine you without them now but..."

"I can't imagine me without them either..." he said, softly, "The time before Russia...It sounds clichéd, but it's as though memories of that time are just recorded tapes of another life, they don't belong to me, _can't _belong to me..."

"I'm beginning to realise what you mean...I've been trying to do that since we got here..." she said, smiling ruefully, and eliciting a soft chuckle from him too, "We're not going to get out of this alive, are we?" she said, tightly, voice catching in her throat,

"I can't answer that Ruth..." he replied, he did not take her hand, tell her to look into his eyes, that everything would be alright, that they would get through this, that of course everything would be fine, because he knew it would be a lie, and he knew that was something that their situation and their shaky relationship could not accept. "It's out of our hands..."

"'As flies to wanton boys are we to the Gods'..." she murmured, softly,

"Quite, the Gods are playing dice with our lives; we just have to hope they fall our way..."

They heard a soft, scuffling noise from outside, they barely had time to look at one another before a group of men burst into the cell, wrenching them apart and to their feet, blinding and gagging them both while their hands were bound, painfully behind their backs. The last thing Ruth was aware of was the soft, venomous whisper in her ear,

"You didn't really think that was it, did you?"

A/N: Bit of a long chapter going nowhere perhaps but I didn't want to just move on from what had happened and ignore it and I didn't want to hammer it through flashbacks either, this was a compromise, hopefully worked alright, the tattooing was something I wished they'd gone in to more in the show, I think my information's right but don't sue me if it's not. Thanks for reading, hopefully you're still enjoying!


	10. The Stranger

**Chapter 10**

The Stranger

Harry leaned across the desk and put the incoming call on speaker. They all waited, allowing their unknown guest to speak first,

"MI-5 I presume?"

"Congratulations. You'll receive your prize within the next twelve working days." Harry snarled, "Who am I speaking with?"

"Well that's a little unfair don't you think Mr. Pearce? I've gone to so much effort learning your names, it seems wrong to just give you mine...Besides, it is not important."

"It may interest you to know that I take no small comfort in knowing that when I have your name, I will have you, something I can assure you, you will take no pleasure in."

"Threats Mr. Pearce?"

"Well they're not prayers for your good health." Ros retorted,

"The lovely Ms Myers I take it?" the voice replied smoothly, "There was no concern or surprise intended, I am merely disappointed. Frankly I had expected better."

"Frankly you should have expected nothing else. You have taken and tortured two of my best officers; you'll forgive me if I'm not in the mood for responding in Shakespearian verse..."

"Well I'm not entirely sure that's accurate Mr. Pearce. I wouldn't say that _two _of your officers had been tortured under my care. In my honest opinion, I rather think that the charming Miss Evershed is enjoying having the chance to take a little revenge on dear Lucas." Came the silky reply, perfectly pitched with blissful ease.

"Why have you contacted us in this way now?" Sofia asked, quickly intervening in the conversation before Harry launched a violent verbal assault on every man, woman and child in Syria.

"Ah, Miss Sofia, lovely of you to join us. Do tell me, how are you after your recent, very unpleasant dealings with that rather unsavoury Russian?"

"Well since my well-being concerns you so, you may take pleasure in knowing that this phone call, lasting all of about three minutes, has given me more reason to bleach my skin clean than several hours and unpleasant dealings with said unsavoury Russian. So please, do tell, why are you inflicting yourself upon us now?"

"I think that says a little more about you and the quality of service one can expect from the average MI-5 slut than it does about me." He replied in honeyed tones.

Sofia blanched but a small smile curved her lip. They finally had an adversary, a direct opponent, nameless and faceless opponent, but an opponent nonetheless.

Under cover of Sofia's verbal sparring with their caller, Ros leaned towards Tariq and murmured,

"Can you trace this?"

"I can try...It'd be hard enough with a disposable but you can bet he's bouncing the signal around. Still, if you can all avoid insulting him to such an extent that he hangs up in order to plot your gruesome demise for long enough, I think I can get him. "

"Well in that case, I'll do my very best."

Their unknown antagonist on the other end of the line had now seen fit to answer Sofia's question saying, calmly,

"Well, for all the pleasure I've taken in watching you all running around like headless chickens, I thought it only fair to tell you why you were doing so."

"How kind of you." Harry sneered, "If you're planning on telling me at any point in the near future, get on with it, if not, stop wasting my time."

"Which would be otherwise spent how exactly? In your darkened office with a bottle of whiskey and no leads on anything?" came the mocking reply.

"Time well spent in comparison to this." Harry shot back,

"Very well, very well...As you all know there is an unidentified warship floating in the port of Latakia."

"Yes, we do, although I think warship is a slight exaggeration, we know it as a cautious cargo ship." Ros replied evenly.

"You can dress it up in any way you want Ms Myers, the fact is it's there and we do not know why...Have you managed to come up with an answer for that yet?"

"Whether we have or not, I'm sure it doesn't matter, you already have an answer that serves your interests for the moment I presume?" Harry said, evasively,

"Quite." Was the smug reply, "As far as our intelligence goes, we have reason to believe that the ship is anonymously sponsoring the rebels known to be operating in and around Latakia."

"Your intelligence is quite clearly questionable in that case." Ros said, icily,

"Why would Britain have any interest in showing support for one side over the other, this is a civil war, nothing to do with us." Harry added, flatly,

"Again I'm disappointed in your lack of imagination Mr. Pearce. And as for it having nothing to do with you, when has that ever stopped your country in the past?" he sneered, "And as for reason, it, as it so often does these days, is fuelled by money. None of the Western nations have taken a stake in the outcome of this war, as you so rightly pointed out; they apparently have no reason to. However, I'm sure that, even if you have not seen it, members of your ever-interfering government will have; that Syria could be a potentially very lucrative investment option for you. If you were to be the first to begin building bridges and broker an agreement with the aspiring rulers of Syria, help them to achieve their ends, well than I can only imagine the kind of rewards that your country may reap from that..."

"Did he just suggest that our government is having an illicit affair with the Syrians?" Ros hissed as they all digested this,

"I think he suggested they've _eloped_..." Sofia muttered back in response.

"You have a rather high opinion of yourself and your country if you believe that Britain would risk countless existing and enduring alliances and agreements in order to bend itself to your will."

"I think the problem here Mr. Pearce is not my opinions but yours. It is not high enough. Underestimation is a criminal flaw in our business and is most likely to have many people killed and your illustrious career crucified."

"As you will soon find out, my underestimation of my enemies is not a sin that has jeopardised my 'illustrious' career, and it has been made so by catching ignorant, arrogant little bastards like you when they think that they are big enough and clever enough to play games in the real world."

"I know that I am big and clever enough to play these games Mr. Pearce, and probably to win, you are the one who has been labouring along in a fantasy world for too long. As you will soon find out, if you know what buttons to push and exactly how to do so, then there isn't a country or a person in this world that won't bend to my will. You will find that what I do next will make your pathetic little country forget about your 'agreements' and your scraps of paper."

"Britain has been to war over a scrap of paper in the past." Harry murmured, quietly, Tariq's continual tapping, ferociously on the keys providing a soundtrack to their conversation.

"And it will do so again, over much the same thing...I have more than enough to target you now. I know that that ship _is _British; however you try to deny it. I know details of its crew members, right down to what they eat for lunch. I know that said 'cautious cargo ship' is too heavily armed for a casual jaunt in the Mediterranean and that it picked up additional arms a few days before docking in port from an unknown source. I know that it has been authorised, by your people in London, to respond to Syria with deadly force if it feels 'threatened', I can only _imagine _what your government is attempting to cover up by putting that out there already, when we have barely _breathed _upon your navy's new toy. The only thing I do not know are the ship's intentions, something I don't need to know to feel justified in asking for what I want."

"And what exactly _do_ you want. For all your poetic talk we _still _don't know what you bloody well want." Sofia snapped, "You have said much while saying nothing at all, so enough with the nuclear Shakespeare speak and tell us something that belongs in the real world."

"You want to live in the real world? The real world is an ugly place Sofia; in the real world I am going to torture and kill your friends and I'm going to torture and kill random members of the public until you give me the authorisation codes for that ship."

"That's what you want? Sofia asked, incredulously,

"Little extreme don't you think? Wouldn't it be easier to leave a polite note under the window asking for it to be parked elsewhere?"Ros enquired mildly.

"Perhaps, but that would rely on my trusting of your government to keep to its word, something that I don't. I have no guarantee that that would remove the threat you currently pose to us. Besides, negotiations of that sort take time, however urgent they are deemed to be and I have never been a patient man when it comes to the slaughter of millions. In that time, while our backs are turned in talks the weapons of our undoing could be smuggled in to the rebels under our noses. No. I want to take control of this situation and I do not want to have to share it. I want those codes. I want _total _unconditional control of that ship..."

"Well I want a day off once in a blue moon and a few extra zeros on my salary, crazy little world isn't it..." Sofia muttered as Harry said,

"Even supposing this delusional theory turns out to be justified and that those codes are actually needed, what makes you think that I have access to them? I'm afraid you're pushing the buttons of the wrong department."

"Oh I'm sure that if I push hard enough you'll find a way to get this information. Everything that I'm doing to your officers, and soon to the people of the country is happening on your soil, that's enough I'm sure. I know that the lovely Ruth knows already, I know that you _can _know, I know that I will find out, it's just a question of when and how many must suffer before death takes them or you save them."

"I thought you would have learned by now that this government is not in the business of negotiat-"

"Not in the business of negotiating with terrorists, of course not. But rules are made to be broken."

"Not this one."

"Yes this one, all of them. There are things I can do to this country that will have your government begging me to take the codes if only so they can show that they are trying to stop me. Mother's with dead children do not care about 'government policy', civilians who have been tortured do not care about 'government policy', crippled economies and desperate people do not care about 'government policy' pain and suffering do not care about 'government policy', and very soon, neither will you, because very soon I am going to allow you to see a very persuasive reason why you, and everyone else in this country will not care about government policy...Speaking of which, I must leave you now, I have to go and produce something for you to see...Think on what I've said in my absence won't you, perhaps then they will not suffer too much more..."

With that the call cut out, all of them sickened, and none of them daring to question aloud what Ruth and Lucas would now be made to suffer.

"Have you got anything on that trace Tariq?"

"I might...I think I have enough to find him but it's going to take a little back-tracking and de-tangling."

"Do it. We find him, we find them."

"Right." Harry said, grimly, jerking them roughly back to reality, "In case Tariq can't find him, or he has measures in place in case we do, I want more information. If that conversation has made anything clear it's that we don't know enough. Whether he's bluffing or not we need to know more. I want someone from six here as soon as is humanly possible, even if that means breaking down the doors at Vauxhall Cross and bodily dragging someone in here."

"No need." A smooth, velvet coloured voice said mildly from the door, "Mr Pearce, the legend of MI-5 I take it?"

A tall, young man with soft dark skin and matching deep eyes stood quietly at the door.

"And who the Hell are you?" Harry demanded, too on edge to bother with niceties.

"I thought I just said." He replied, smiling easily as he made their way into their midst. The mood they were in it was alarmingly like Bambi ambling into the path of a pack of rabid, ravenous wolves and almost instantly, their leader leapt upon him,

"I know what you are, I asked _who_ you are, name." Harry snapped,

"So he knows exactly who to order the hit on when this goes belly-up." Ros informed him with poisonous sweetness.

"Jesse Cole, I've been sent as liaison officer from six."

"Finally. I thought I was going to have to storm your lair to find out why you'd all suddenly returned to the stone age and lost the ability to answer civil phone calls." Harry barked,

"My apologies Mr Pearce." He replied, quietly, seeming to have enough sense to know not to argue back.

"I have no use for your apologies, and for God's sake don't call me Mr Pearce." He said thinking back to the infuriating habit of their recent enigmatic caller.

"Right well, lengthy introductions are overrated, I'm sure you'll catch up. Sit, speak." Ros told him, feeling that they had squandered enough time waiting for six and she was not about to give him the chance to ask for an abridged version of their autobiographies before they started.

"What would you like me to speak about?" he asked a little nonplussed as he took a seat.

"The weather." Ros replied, voice dripping with sarcasm.

"I think we might be better discussing the ship situation in Syria, my real point was, what, do you want to know about it, specifically?"

"What is it doing there?" Ros asked, bluntly,

"I was afraid you would ask that..."

"Why? Too many big words?"

"No, too many small ones actually, and since you like specifics, mainly 'why'."

"Really? Do put us out of our misery, as you can see we're all hanging on in anticipation." Harry said, sarcastically,

"As you probably know the ship _is _ours. It was sent to that general area as a test voyage, see how it handled being further from London than the channel. Everything was going smoothly until a few days ago when things became weird. It was decided, by people above my level and for reasons beyond my clearance, that its course should be changed and it should be sent towards Syria, after an unscheduled meeting with persons unknown in the middle of nowhere. The waters around that area are..._Interesting _shall we say. It was originally believed by most that the ship had been sent there to test its capabilities in more treacherous waters, but things quickly became a little more uncertain."

"Any particular reason?" Sofia asked_ it's like pulling bloody teeth..._

He hesitated a moment before deciding it was too late to turn back now and continuing, "The ship is controlled from London, that much is true, but not necessarily _by _London. For obvious reasons this ship, its origins and allegiance, have been kept firmly under wraps. This voyage, as with all others it's undergone, has been kept separate from major government departments, being operated by a small, separate, independent group of people across various areas. They were given full control and information and the rest of us have just had to muddle along on what they deem to be 'necessary' and what we deem to be criminally irresponsible censoring of knowledge."

"Is there any point to this other than how scorned you all feel?" Harry asked, pointedly,

"Yes. We may not have been given control over the ship, but were given full communication with it, its crew and its London coordinators...That is, up until the point that it decided to park itself in Latakia. Since then _we've _had nothing from it but it has been communicating with people and places unknown..."

"We already know all of this. One of our officers was given a tip-off about this by someone at GCHQ about our ship's secret overseas affair." Harry barked, "What do you have that we don't?"

"Respect." Cole sat, flatly, losing patience, "I was sent here to liaise with you, to tell you what we know, not to provide you with the answers to life the universe and everything." He broke off catching himself before saying, "I'm sorry, I know they have two of your officers and believe me, I would like to help you to return them and resolve this situation quickly but I don't see it happening. This, whatever 'this' is goes up higher than any of us anticipated, someone else is involved and, for whatever reason, the powers that be have decided not to tell us about it."

"So what do you suggest?" Ros asked, sardonically,

"That whatever they won't tell us, we find out by other means...I want to help you, I do, but you need to give me something too. We're supposed to be liaising."

"Yes, yes we are, so, what would you like to know?"

"Have you had any contact from the group responsible, the ones who have your officers?"

"Yes, they kindly sent a video link of their torture before we have a lovely heart-to-heart over the phone just before you arrived." Ros informed him matter-of-factly.

"Jesus, they don't mess around do they...What do they want?"

"The ability to override the ship's London control, they want the authorisation codes."

"If it weren't so serious I would laugh, they can't expect us to just hand over the reins to one of our most advanced recent developments in naval technology with our compliments." He sighed and shook his head before saying, "Have they actually levelled any direct threats against Britain yet?"

"God I was wondering how long it was going to take you lot to start getting bloody territorial. They have MI-5 officers; they are threatening Mi-5 from within this country and therefore, this country's national security-"Harry began, furiously,

"I wasn't implying that you shouldn't be involved in this. I'm just trying to understand what's going on and it's like trying to get blood from a stone." Cole replied mildly.

"There haven't been any direct threats, but as Harry says, they have our people and it has been implied that if they don't start talking, there will be threats made against Britain itself." Sofia told him, as Harry began to pace around the perimeter of the room.

"Alright...I take it your to nip this in the bud before that point, get them, get your officers back and prevent any serious threats to national security?"

"That was the idea, but they're good. Enough to get under our skin but careful enough for us not to know what they're doing under there."

"I see...Incidentally, do we know who 'they' are?"

They hesitated, collectively, synchronised mistrust having been an Olympic class talent on The Grid for some time before Sofia said, after a quick glance in Harry and Ros, "We believe they belong to a faction within the apparently pro-government group called the Shabiha. They call themselves 'The Angel's Lies'."

"Shit." Cole snarled, without warning.

"Unless you have_Tourette's_**,** this sounds promising..." Harry said with customary tact.

"I think that this is about more than ships and codes, and if I'm right then your people and this country have a very serious problem..."

"Add it to the list..." Tariq murmured, before anyone could become too overjoyed by this.

"What?" Ros asked, feeling that none of them would like the answer,

"I managed to untangle the line of signal jamming and isolate the location of the call."

"Why is that a bad thing?" Ros asked, confused,

"Because it was made in the foyer of Thames House..."

A/N: Thank you for reading/reviewing. Quick point, I've been splitting the chapters between Grid and Ruth/Lucas to stop either one becoming too heavy, is this working, or does it feel too disjointed?


	11. Love is a Sin

**Chapter 11**

Love is a Sin...

Ruth winced as the cold; tiles came up to meet her faster than she was anticipating.

She was still shaking as her cable ties were removed. She had no idea how long their last 'session' had lasted; it could have been an hour, ten minutes or ten days. She didn't care. It was over. Please God let it be over...

Once again, she had not been physically harmed, none of them had so much as breathed on her; but that had not stopped her from being in pain throughout.

She got shakily to her feet and moved instinctively away from the now closed door. If only to give herself something to do to avoid the rush of memories that were threatening to remind her of the all too recent history contained within these walls. A bowl of fruit and several bottles of water had been left in the corner of the room, looking mockingly like something a visitor would bring to a patient in a hospital. Carefully open one of the bottles and not particularly caring if it was laced with arsenic she took several shaky sips, but found herself choking on it.

She found that it was impossible for her trembling legs to support her and sank back to the floor, attempting to maintain control of herself as she was violently assaulted by a sudden flood of flashbacks.

The door reopened and the dark stranger who had interrogated her entered the room.

"Where is Lucas?" she demanded throatily, despising the way her voice cracked as she spoke.

"Relax, he will be returned to you in due course...Poor thing is in a bit of a state I'm afraid after what you did to him...You may need these." He handed her a bundle of soft white towels before turning wordlessly and leaving her alone once again.

The memories of what had happened to them, what they had done to him, of what _she _had done to him. She caught herself there, stopping herself from going further, knowing that the words were not true but being unable to prevent them from poisoning her conscience all the same.

She did not have to wait long for the stranger's promise to be fulfilled as the door was opened and Lucas was indeed 'returned to her'. However 'a bit of a state' she found to be a bit of an understatement.

This time soft words and gentle touch were not enough for him to respond to her.

She could see his muscles contracting and shaking in response to whatever Hell he was going through.

Shaking herself and knowing that she had to do something to at least feel as though she was helping, emptied out the bowl of food and brought it closer to them along with several bottles of water, setting them next to the towels and she had been given, crossing her legs and taking several deep breaths to compose herself before beginning.

Attempting to stop her hands from twitching without success, her trembling fingers undid the buttons of Lucas' torn shirt and carefully removed it wincing as it clung desperately to the raw, ragged skin beneath.

Setting the torn fabric aside resolving to soak it afterwards she began by gently wetting one of the towels and beginning to clean the wounds crossing over his back.

After around half-an-hour she saw the skin under her hands crawl as the muscles in his back tensed. He drew a long rattling breath and twitched away from her on instinct.

"Sorry..." she murmured, gently placing a soft hand on his shoulder to reassure him that it was her.

His muscles relaxed somewhat as he took several deep breaths and adjusted to the sudden burst of consciousness that had been thrust upon him. His body jerked again as she continued to clean his injuries.

"Sorry." She winced again,

"It's alright." He replied, huskily, "Thank you." He added weakly,

She continued carefully but as her hands twitched violently she caught one of the rough cuts causing him to hiss in pain.

"They won't stop shaking." She said, withdrawing from him, nervously, after a frantic apology.

"They will." He told her softly, pushing himself up and resting his back against the cold tiles taking her hands in his own for a second before withdrawing them back to himself, breaking the connection.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he murmured,

"Talk about it?" she repeated incredulously. He blinked "Yes why don't we just verbally relive it all?" she snapped, verging on hysteria.

"Why don't we?"

She stared at him, "What?"

"Shut your eyes, go back to the beginning, talk it through."

"Have you completely lost-"

"No. It's better than the alternative. Trust me..."

Watching him cautiously she allowed her eyelids to block out her current view of the world.

"They came into the cell, blindfolded, gagged and bound us..."

They had then been marched into separate rooms and once again, she had been presented with the insufferable interrogator and a laptop screen.

Lucas had been tied once more in the same position as before, stretching the barely healed cuts and splitting several of them open once more; although this time they were told that they could communicate.

"How are you doing Lucas?" the man beside Ruth enquired smoothly.

"Oh everything's just hunky-dory with me..." he snarled in response.

"Very well...It's quite simple Ruth, you answer my questions and we can comfortably move on from this."

"What you'll just let us go?" she snapped with a humourless laugh.

"No, not quite, we still have several more sessions to go until that moment, but you will be able to sleep tonight, in peace."

"Sleep? In peace? So what, we can just relive everything that happens here?" she demanded, shakily,

"If you answer my questions there will be nothing to relive."

"What are you going to do to him when I say no?" she breathed, softly,

"Oh I'm quite sure you'll find out...Now..._Why _is that ship in Syria?"

"I don't know." She said, closing her eyes, this was true; she had no idea why the ship was there, it was something that had caused an uproar in London and had yet to generate any answers.

She forced herself to face the screen knowing that if she turned away or refused to watch, that whatever they were doing to Lucas would be made worse.

Everything had been eerily similar to their first encounter and she had been sure that the wicked silver dagger had been set to make a return. She had been wrong. This was worse. A thin whip rested in his torturer's hands. The cruel, spiked instrument would have been bad enough on its own but when combined with his existing injuries would be unbearable from the word go.

The man beside her sighed as the whip fell in response to her words and Lucas howled. He had been attempting to avoid reacting so as to spare her but he could not help himself, feeling as though his back was being rent open and branded with hot metal.

They continued for several more questions and more lashes for Lucas as every time Ruth refused to offer an answer and then flinched as Lucas bore the punishment. This time was worse, for both of them. Last time the dagger had continued, uninterrupted, with only the knowledge that it would stop if she answered. This time it felt as though she herself were dealing him every blow as they were performed in an instantaneous response to her words.

Lucas was barely conscious and what could only be described as delirious when her interrogator raised his hand and said silkily,

"A break. For a moment...Really Miss Evershed, while what I've asked you would be useful for me to know, and certainly irritates me to be ignorant about, it is not of vital importance to me, but there is something that I really would like you to answer for me...I asked your friends about it, when I called MI-5 for a cosy chat...I'm allowing them to think on whether or not they want you back but as I know their track record I find it only fair to give you the chance to save yourselves..." He paused there as Ruth felt nausea rising in her throat, knowing that it was about to begin again, "The authorisation codes to allow manual control to the ship, I'll spare you a little, I know that you know, now all I need you to do, is tell me what they are, tell me what they are and this will all be over now."

She shook her head, stomach convulsing as she choked, "No."

Lucas howled in agony and she felt tears falling from her eyes at the noise, feeling responsible.

"As I've said Ruth, this information is very important to me, so I'll ask you again, the authorisation codes..."

She was unable to speak now, shoulders shaking violently, tears falling from her eyes, hand covering her mouth and could only shake her head.

This time the interrogation was not stopped by the sleazy bastard she had grown to despise more than she had ever known possible but was forced to end as Lucas slipped gratefully into unconsciousness, deciding that fighting the inevitable was not worth it, particularly since he could hear Ruth as well as she could hear him.

Resigned to the fact that, even if he had still be conscious and the interrogation could have continued, Ruth herself was in a state that, even had she wanted to, she would not have been able to and decided not to attempt to revive Lucas for some futile continued attempt...

She opened her eyes and found herself holding onto his wrist at little too firmly, her nails digging in to the skin and drawing blood.

To her surprise, it had helped talking it out, whether he had listened or not and she found that her hands were now quite steady.

"Thank you..." she said, quietly, in slight disbelief

"Welcome..." he murmured softly.

"How did you know?"

"It's funny...I had a cell mate in Russia for a little while too...Irony was, he had been a member of the FSB, they thought he had betrayed them, he hadn't, so technically we were two rival spies in a confined space but in prison that doesn't matter too much. Anyway the point is, he had been there for three years over and above me and had suffered about the same amount of torture. Before he explained it, I used to sit and listen to him recounting everything they had done to him in painful detail; so much so that I began to believe that he had been planted in there to torment me, when I finally asked him he told me that it was a coping strategy. You needed something to distract you, to take your mind off it, as ironic as that sounds, it wasn't the fact that you were going back over that in depth; it was the fact that you were going over _something _in depth; you were forcing yourself to _do _something. People think that getting over something like this they need to _do _something, and that's true but physical acts don't mean much, you needed psychologically distracted..."

She nodded, slowly, this made sense, however unpleasant it had been, she now did feel better, "It's almost as though are nightmares are trying to force us into facing whatever it is we run from in reality..." she said, quietly,

"If you want to get poetic about it." He said, the smile turning to a grimace as he stretched the wounds on his back.

"That's going to hurt like Hell in the morning..." she told him softly,

"Yeah." He said, choking a little as he suppressed a laugh,

"Why are they doing this to us Lucas?" she breathed,

"I don't know Ruth...Who can know why anyone does anything? Hate, greed, love."

"People have such poetic thoughts about love. One of the most tragic things in our line of work is knowing the truth..."

"Someone once told me, ' love should be considered as great a sin as wrath or greed, for how many wars have been fought, how many people have died, how many things have been destroyed in the name of love?'"

"It's a cruel world when you know what you're looking at...And these, _people_, exploit it, exploit human nature, they play on our fears and insecurities and feed off our pain...They told me that they'd spoken to Harry and the others on The Grid...They said they weren't exactly champing at the bit to get us back..."

"Well they would tell you that...Harry could have flown to the moon and back for you, probably would, but it's not exactly in their best interests to tell you that is it?" he reasoned quietly,

"No...But I don't know what's worse, the fact that I believe it could be true, or that I can bring myself to believe that it's true...How many people have I watched die? How many funerals have I attended? How many have I loved and lost to this job and for how long has the _machine _that is MI-5 paused to consider our loss?"

"I think we all expect that when we sign up Ruth...Most of this job, for me anyway, has been spent in situations that other people could never contemplate, for me, most of it was spent in a Russian prison cell, not something that I would have chosen and not something that I signed up for. If I had known what they would do to me, and how senselessly they would do it, I probably wouldn't have become involved...But in saying that, I have no regrets. None. I love this job, I need this job, it's the only thing that's ever made any sense to me, the only place I've ever been understood...Do you have any regrets?"

"No..." she breathed, "No, I would still do it, really, at the minute...I just hate it..."

"I know...There were times in Russia when I despised it, I despised all of it, I even despised Harry...The people I had worked with for years, in something I had dedicated my life to, I couldn't stand. I thought that Harry had forgotten me as with all of his other problems in his usual evening glass of whiskey, that I was nothing to him. I thought that this country had forgotten me...I then realised the true nature of the beast we are in. I was never forgotten because I was never known; I could never be forgotten by anyone, because no-one knew that I existed. In this job, whether we shuffle off this rock at ninety with our family around us, we crawl through traitor's gate or we die heroes, we are never remembered, never rewarded, never honoured in any way. The only people who will come to our funerals are those who also do not exist, mortal ghosts in a mortal world, a part of their world but never allowed to live in it..."

She nodded in quiet acceptance of his words that rung a little too true in her mind. They sat silently, taking as much comfort in the other's presence as was possible in the dark and in the quiet until they were rudely interrupted.

The stranger who had interrogated them returned to the room and they both flinched, horrified by the idea that they would be tortured once more, mere hours after their last.

"You still will not talk?" he spat at Ruth, his face inches from hers, causing Lucas to subconsciously move his body in front of hers, as she defiantly shook her head, neither of them knowing what was happening,

"Then it may please you to know that thanks to the most recent mistake of your friends, I have found someone who shall make you." He spat violently.

He stormed from the room, slamming the door behind them, his visit apparently serving no purpose other than to take out some strange anger on them.

"What the Hell is he talking about?" Ruth asked, terrified by who he might mean, "It must be one of them, Ros or Harry." She said, petrified,

"No, it can't be, it won't be, they're too careful."

"We were too careful and look where we've bloody ended up!" she screamed at him,

A thin slip of paper was slid under the door at this point. Lucas moved forward, despite being in pain, and picked it up, having a fairly good idea of what it would be, and not wanting Ruth to see it first. He was right when it turned out to be a picture of their latest victim the word '_LEVERAGE' _scrawled across their eyes but still horribly familiar to him.

His eyes darted towards Ruth before back to the now shaking image in his hand as shock swept over him and he slid down the wall, shaking his head in disbelief as he terrified Ruth, covering his mouth with his hand as he whispered,

"No..."

A/N: Thanks for reading/reviewing!


	12. Beneath the Skin

**Chapter 12**

Beneath the Skin

"He was _where_?" Ros spat, practically launching herself across the table in her bid to see conformation of Tariq's words with her own eyes.

"There, main foyer." Tariq told her, pointing at the small red dot on the screen showing that their enemy was hitting a little closer to home than any of them had anticipated.

"And you're sure about that? There's no way they can be manipulating the tracers?"She asked, almost desperately,

"No. He could make it appear to be originating in the Mojave Desert if he wanted, but not for an extended length of time. The signal from the foyer I had a consistent trace on...And I also found this..."

Minimising the trace window he pulled up a second one that showed live footage from the CCTV cameras in the Thames House foyer.

"I wound it back so that the times on the cameras aligned with our phone call."

He replayed the last few minutes of the offending footage and showed them a tall figure in the background hanging up in time with their call before smirking and saluting the camera on his way out, less than an hour ago.

"I want to know who this bastard is, _now_." Harry snarled,

"I think I may be able to help you with that." Cole told them quietly,

They all turned to face him in unison, slightly alarming him. His little outburst had been pushed to the backs of their minds after Tariq's more shocking revelation had distracted them.

"Please, feel free." Harry said, invitingly through gritted teeth

"I think I know your Syrian friend." He said, bluntly, getting their attention before adding hastily on the back of their expressions, "By word-of-mouth only though. There was a reason they sent me to liaise with you on this; I've spent more time in Syria than I have in Britain in these last few years. A seemingly routine operation over there in late 2010 snowballed when it was caught up in the uprisings in March; I've been privy to a lot of vital information since then. Over there, files and databases don't matter; the word on the street is law. The Angel's Lies is a name that the people there fear to utter and that speaks far more than statistics on a computer screen. If half of the legends that flutter around the marketplace spoken by the brave fools that dare to talk about it then you have a problem, particularly if that's who I think it is."

"And who exactly do you think it is?" Ros asked impatiently,

"His name is Hadi Jamal. In Syria they call him 'Ghareeb' or 'Stranger'. The man's a ghost, no-one knows who he is but they all know what he's done...I don't think that his interests in MI-5 are purely professional either."

"What? Did we run over his cat? Spit it out." Ros said, eyes narrowed, tiring of the continuous monologues.

"Several years ago five and six worked a joint operation related, indirectly, to Hadi Jamal. Its origins lay in Syria but the fallout was all directed at Britain so five took point and blame. It was called 'Starling'-"

"Oh shit..." Harry interrupted suddenly, massaging his eyes at this

"You remember?" Cole asked, grimly,

"How could I forget?"

"At least give us the option, what was it?" Sofia broke in, like Ros, also tiring of the dithering around the point.

"A few years ago an MI-6 asset, James Martins, went AWOL after he was uncovered in Syria. He had been living and working there with his wife for about eighteen months, passing on sensitive secrets as and when it was required on the activities of the Syrian government. Things went swimmingly until the Syrians found out what he was and what he was doing. They left him untouched but kidnapped, tortured and killed his wife before mailing photographs of her body to their family, blaming him for her death." Harry began to explain tiredly

"I'm guessing Martins didn't take this too well..." Sofia muttered,

"Not entirely no. Martins burst into a hotel brandishing a gun and carrying a bomb. A delegation from Syria, friends and advisors to the President and their families had been invited to London as part of a public political show for 'improving international relations' to give both sides a boost in the polls in the run-up to elections. It should have been a simple op, take out Martins, diffuse the bomb, crisis averted. Unfortunately, by this point, Martins had been working on and off with the services for about three years and blamed us as much as the Syrians for his wife's death. He didn't just wander into a hotel with a bomb and hope for the best, he handed us a detailed well-thought out plan and an ultimatum. "

"He wanted to ensure that the bomb went off, one way or the other..." Ros murmured,

"Yes. Martins claimed to have crucial intelligence of a dirty bomb being detonated at the heart of London, something we'd already heard whispers about, within three days of his little hotel stunt. If we allowed him to set off his hotel bomb, killing at most a dozen, he would walk free with the information to prevent a dirty bomb killing thousands. If we attempted to stop him, he would make every effort to detonate the bomb anyway and the only intelligence we had on a catastrophic terror attack in London would die with him."

"Ultimately we knew that we needed Martins and we got him...We attempted to evacuate the hotel in time but we were too late, three people died and several more were injured. Still, we got our information, Martins got his revenge. In theory, everyone was happy."

"In practice, Hadi Jamal wasn't. His sixteen year old daughter Sabeena was killed in the blast at the hotel." Cole said softly, "Prompted him to make some drastic life changes. As far as he's concerned, he gets to kill two birds with one stone this way..."

"It certainly explains why he made MI-5 his main focus when six or even the MOD would have made more appropriate targets, whatever he's currently doing or planning to do in this country." Sofia said softly, not needing to add that it also explained the excessive torture Lucas and Ruth were being subjected to.

"What do we have on Jamal?" Harry asked, turning to Cole

"Officially? Nothing. I told you, the man's a ghost, he doesn't exist. Everything he does is done at arm's length and through others; you won't find blood on his hands or his fingerprints anywhere."

"Well as this isn't 'CSI: Terrorism', we're not too concerned with blood and fingerprints and what we can prove. What do we know _un_officially?"

"That he's been indirectly responsible for the death, kidnapping and torture of hundreds of people. You only have to look at the way your officers have been taken and treated to know that he's well-versed in this. He's extremely careful and he knows what he's doing. The accuracy with which he can judge limits, know _exactly _how far he can push something without getting caught makes him even more dangerous...The five minute phone call you had with him should be enough to tell you that he has a gift for getting under people's skin."

"Speaking of getting under people's skin..." Tariq muttered, his expression catching their attention instantly as he stared at the laptop screen, "They've uploaded a second video to their server..."

Their relief at seeing that both Ruth and Lucas were still alive quickly evaporated upon watching the video. All of them almost bringing themselves to wish that Ruth would crack and give them something just to end it...But as always, mechanical professionalism overcame personal humanity and they were all relieved when Lucas fell unconscious, cutting the interrogation short without them having gained anything.

"Son of a bitch..." Tariq snarled in frustration,

"What's wrong?" Sofia asked, gently,

"Their sending it from somewhere...No matter how hard they try and cover it up, how much of the data they try and compile from across the web it comes from _somewhere _and I should be able to find out where..."

"Don't be so hard on yourself, you only have two uploads to work with, you need more information." Sofia told him, having a slightly better understanding of what he was saying than the others,

"I don't think they can take much more..."

"They will...For the same reason you'll find them...Because you have to..."

At that point a text file was uploaded to the server, dragging them all from their respective drowning pools of self-pity.

"Open it." Harry told Tariq, softly,

_And Doctor Jekyll shall come to Hyde_

_Before the dawning of the night. _

_Six from now and six from then_

_Come alone until the end_

_Else the haunted, tortured mortal ghosts_

_The heart-dead living shall have cause to toast. _

"Sounds like you have a date Harry." Ros told him, drily,

"And here I don't recall signing up for online dating." He sighed, needing to find his sense of humour for the sake of his sanity again, if only for a moment,

"We thought it would be good for you." Sofia told him with a smirk, sharing his sentiments.

"Right, so, continuing with this childish metaphor, if Dr Jekyll is Harry and Hyde is our new best friend Jamal, what else do we get from this?" Ros asked,

Predictably, Sofia took a stab first, "'Before the dawning of the night. Six from now, six from then.' I'd say today, six hours from now and six hours before midnight, same thing, six o'clock this evening?" she said, to general agreement.

"'Come alone until the end. Else the haunted, tortured mortal ghosts

The heart-dead living shall have cause to toast.' I'm guessing that means that if we start posting snipers on the rooftops they'll hurt or kill Ruth and Lucas?" Tariq asked,

"Sounds like a fair guess to me..." Ros agreed,

"Where's he getting 'mortal ghosts' from though?" Tariq wondered aloud.

"Lucas." Sofia said, quietly, smiling sadly, "His own little pet-name for us spooks...Long Russian story..."

"Alright so he wants to meet Harry and Harry alone...Where?" Tariq asked, pointing out a flaw in their otherwise _perfect_ plan.

They all paused to consider this before Ros, sensing the impending blank looks of her colleagues, asked, "Has anything else come up on the server?"

"No that's it..." Tariq told her, double checking

"It must be in there somewhere then...We must be missing something." Ros muttered

"Mr?" an unexpected voice suggested softly,

They all turned to look at Cole.

"Sorry..." he flushed, embarrassed, before continuing, "But if you look, it mentions _Dr. _Jekyll but not Mr Hyde, only Hyde..."

"'Mr'. Hyde doesn't fit with the rhythm of the poem, whereas Dr does." Sofia pointed out,

"Yes but what if Mr doesn't fit in a contextual sense either, what if it means two things?"

"Well, spit it out." Ros interrupted, drily, thinking that the day the man gave her a straight answer without wanting to dance around the mulberry bushes first would be a bloody miracle, but it was Sofia who answered for the slightly shell-shocked Cole,

"Hyde Park?" She breathed, understanding. Relieved, Cole nodded.

Biting her tongue to avoid asking why he hadn't just said that in the first place Ros said, "Harry, Hyde Park, six o'clock this evening..." Before she should open the inevitably lengthy debate on whether or not he should go however, Harry got to his feet and took charge,

"Right/" he began smoothly, in his element now that he had something to work towards again, "Tariq, keep working on that trace, throw everything we have and everything we shouldn't have but do at it until there's no hope. Mr. Cole, make yourself comfortable and useful, you have the pleasure of working with Sofia; squeeze every last drop of information from him. As a side note, tea is complimentary when made in bulk. Ros, my office if you would..."

It seemed strange to have so few of them to delegate to, even though there had not been much _to _delegate. On this operation, willpower was proving to be far more tested than man-power and he hoped for the sake of his missing men that this changed soon.

"I'm reserving the right to invite a plus one to this little Hyde Park garden party, especially as I don't believe that our new friend will play by the rules he has set. I'd like you to come as well Ros."

"You're meeting him then?" She asked, taking a seat at the desk.

"Of course."

"Yes of course, it's not like he's a psychotic sociopath who has it in for you after the death of his daughter and who has asked you to meet him in the middle of an open, crowded civilian area, alone, because that would be stupid."

"It would, that's why you're coming with me."

"Don't be flippant with me Harry!" she snapped, "Are you sure that this is the right decision for the operation?"

"It's the only decision for the operation." He retorted, "We haven't exactly been snowed under with the number of breakthroughs on this Ros and need I remind you that the lives of two of our officers are at stake. So, with that in mind, any opportunity they hand to us on a silver platter, I am inclined to take."

"That's my problem, it's all a little too easy...I'm inclined not to take things from silver platters unless I'm sure there isn't a dagger beneath it and I'm also inclined to believe that they also had our officers in mind."

"What are you getting at here Ros?" he said, eyes narrowed dangerously, knowing perfectly well what she was getting at and daring her to get there. She did.

"Ruth." She replied shortly, continuing as Harry scoffed, "She's bait to them, bait for a far larger fish that they know will bite...Are you trying to tell me that your personal feelings for her aren't influencing this decision? You didn't even hesitate, no debate, no discussion, no nothing."

"Of course not, we don't have time for debate and discussions Ros, or would you like me to replay those videos for you since you seem to have forgotten?" he snapped, "My influences on making this decision are out of concern for both her and Lucas who I consider both to be colleagues and friends. My 'personal feelings' for Ruth are purely professional."

"Bullshit." She snarled, her temper not allowing her to care that she was leaping across a line, "Everyone in here knows that you'd more than like to walk her up an aisle and in to bed-"

"Enough!" he spat, jumping to his feet, "Or perhaps I should start questioning your motivations and whose bed _you _have been sharing recently?"

"Question away. I won't lie about it." She shot back, also getting to her feet. However, at the door she turned and said, "If you insist on going through with this, you know I'll go with it, wherever it leads, without question...I just want it on the record now that it's a mistake..."

...

Ros and Harry sat quietly in the car side by side. They were both professional, what normal people would call soulless, enough to move on from their earlier argument without mention and without being uncomfortable. They both knew that the operation they were in the middle of took precedence and that they had both been running on adrenaline, exhausted and irritable and both could see the other's point of view from a calmer perspective.

Sun was splitting the trees as they arrived at Hyde Park, they both split up immediately upon exiting the car and did not take the same entrance or the same route though, by apparent happy coincidence, stopped mere feet from one another at the heart of the enormous green swathe of trees and grass on the edge of the lake. Harry waited on a long blue bench while Ros settled herself in the shade of a large oak, headphones in, seemingly engrossed in a book.

It did not take long for their very own Mr. Hyde to amble along the path, taking a seat next to Harry who gave him a mocking salute in acknowledgement as he drew nearer.

"Well, well, the famous Sir Harry in the flesh...Do you have your snipers waiting in the trees?"

"You did say come alone..."

"So I did, but they used to say never on a Sunday..."

"Unless you have people then we are alone, not that I see it makes much difference."

"How so?"

"We came here to talk."

"Ah yes, so we did."

"So talk..."

"I take it you got my message?"

"No, I developed prophetic abilities over lunch, they told me to meet you here." He replied scathingly,

He chuckled lightly at this before continuing, "Well did they tell you that if you are not willing to give me the authorisation codes then your officers have not even _begun _to imagine what I will do to them...And poor Lucas I'm sure, can imagine rather a lot on the subject..."

"I wonder how it's still possible for you to imagine that I would ever be able to deliver those codes to you."

"Needs must Harry...I'm sure if you pushed yourself, I mean, I have the same woman you were willing to trade potentially devastating genetic weapons for with the Chinese." He said, smoothly,

"That was different." He said, not rising to the bait of asking how he knew that although it was a question he was wrestling with himself, "That file could never have led to anything, it was a fake, we all knew that it was a fake."

"I think my point was the implications of that decision, not the flawed logic you developed at a later date to explain it away..."

"There is no flawed logic in this, whatever you threaten, you cannot have those codes...It will never be agreed."

"Everyone has their pressure point Harry, an Achilles heel, we _all_ have a weakness. I'm sure I can find it...And say, for the moment, hypothetically, if I were to threaten your life."

Ros tensed, knuckled turning white as she gripped the edges of the book. Harry however, seemed largely unconcerned that a highly dangerous, psychotic Syrian torturer had expressed the sentiment that he would quite like to kill him.

"I would call your bluff and leave." Harry replied, calmly, "It was never your intention to kill me...If it was I would be dead already...You want to punish me, you want to take something from me in the same way I took something from you."

"I can assure you Mr. Pearce, I have no idea what you're talking about, my intentions are purely business."

"Well that's a rather callous way to describe your daughter, even if she has been dead, how many years would that be now?" he replied coldly,

"You know perfectly well what I said. Stop playing games. Why did you want to meet?"

"This is over. You will regret that Mr. Pearce..." he breathed, "I am going to cause unimaginable pain to your friends on your behalf and you can rest assured that they will know that _you _are to blame."

"Everyone has an Achilles Heel..." He muttered as Jamal strode away from him in disgust and Ros quietly returned to his side.

A/N: Thank you for reading and reviewing! I am very grateful to all :)


	13. Achilles Heel

**Chapter 13**

Achilles Heel

Lucas had slid down the wall, hand covering his mouth in horror, the naively smiling photograph being crumpled in his hand as he murmured incoherently in mixed Russian and English.

Ruth watched him, horrified, both needing and never wanting to know who was being painted into the nightmare they were being forced to call reality. She did not however think that Lucas was in any condition to tell her and prising the ball of paper from his shocked fingers seemed wrong...

_This _was somehow worse than anything else they had done to him. She watched as he quietly fell apart before her eyes. After everything he had endured _this _had broken him and it was breaking her too.

She needed him. She needed him to pull himself together and remind her how to do the same thing. She was a strong, independent woman, there was no denying that, but she was out of her depth. She was out of her depth and the one thing she had had to cling to was drowning.

The sheer _denial _that he was struggling with terrified her. Willingly or not, her head was telling her that it was Harry. Whether or not there was any reason for this, whether or not her heart and head had their wires crossed did not much matter to her.

The fact was that Harry fit, whether she made it or not, he fit and that was killing her.

Their host had already delighted in telling them that because of the 'recent mistake of their friends, he had found someone who would make them talk'...It could only be someone from The Grid and her mind had chosen to fill the blank with Harry.

And Lucas had been sure that it wouldn't be anyone from The Grid, _couldn't _be anyone from The Grid. But if they had angered their interrogator they must have communicated with him in some way, what if their mistake had been meeting him? Throwing fuel on the fire and leaving themselves to be burned.

It couldn't be Harry. It couldn't...But what if it was?

"Lucas?" she breathed, shakily, needing to know one way or the other, "Lucas is it-"

At that moment however the door opened and their charming host calmly entered the room. He had barely taken two steps into the room when he found himself pinned against the wall by Lucas, an arm across his throat and another pinning his own to his side.

Ruth jumped in fright at the unexpected violence of the usually calm, quiet-spoken man as he hissed,

"How did you get to her?"

_Her? _

A gun was pointed against Lucas' temple and a knife pressed into the small of his back but did little to disuade him.

"Oh very good Mr North...I believe this sounds promising." He said, silkily, waving away his would-be protectors as he leaned forward and breathed, "Release me, or I'll kill her now and use the lovely Miss Evershed in her place."

Lucas pushed himself away from him and slumped to the floor, his legs giving way beneath him as the adrenaline hit drained from his now shaking muscles.

"And so it begins..."

This time they were both left in the room with the laptop and they were left alone once again.

"Lucas..." Ruth murmured cautiously, "Who is it?"

However at that moment her question was both answered and not answered as the monitor flickered in to life.

A woman was seen being forced to her knees but not without putting up a considerable fight. She looked pale and terrified but still slapper their interrogator across the face as he knelt down beside her, leaving deep, bloody furrows in his cheek before spitting on the floor at his feet. She was struck in the stomach for this causing her to choke, doubling over in pain.

"I'm sorry..." Lucas whispered almost inaudibly through his fingers, eyes closed, as far from the laptop as the confines of the cell would allow.

"Bastards." She snarled in Russian.

Her large brown eyes were filled with pain and concern as she too stared at a screen and breathed, softly, in disbelief,

"Lucas?"

The simple sound had more of an effect on him than two hours of beatings, whips and knives as he responded instantly to it, now within inches of the monitor.

"Vyeta, I..."

"You said they would not find us..." she whispered,

"I know I'm sorry. I..."

"You said we would be _safe_."

"You will be. Vyeta, I promise...Vyeta, look at me."

She did.

"They're going to kill me." She whispered, her eyes filling with defiant tears.

"No." Lucas hissed

"Maybe." A third voice interrupted smoothly, "If you'll forgive the irony, we're going to play a little game."

He told them, cheerfully, producing an empty revolver as he spoke.

"A little Russian Roulette to see if we can't fix our little problem...It's quite simple. I load a bullet into the gun."

He slipped one deliberately into the barrel.

"Then I ask a question." He continued, turning to look at Ruth, "The codes if you please Miss Evershed?"

Ruth flicked her eyes towards Lucas' tortured ones as the unmistakeable snick of the chamber being spun and locked into place echoed around the tiled room.

She shook her head, horrified as she breathed, "I don't know...I can't. I..."

"You refuse." He said, calmly, in an almost bored tone, "I do this."

Elizabeta covered her mouth with her hands to muffle to scream as, in one fluid movement, he pointed the gun at her temple and pulled the trigger.

The barrel gun harmless sifted to the next as it hit an empty round, but not before Ruth and Lucas both jumped.

"Every time you fail to answer one of my questions, I will give her a choice, heads or tails..."

"Fuck off you bastard." She spat in Russian, even though tears were beginning to roll down her cheeks and she was shaking violently.

"Tut, tut, Elizabeta, you don't answer, I'll have someone shoot dear Lucas in a joint of their choice."

The door behind Ruth and Lucas slammed against the wall.

Elizabeta jumped and shrieked, "Tails..." pitching forwards, still on her knees.

"Tails it is..." He flipped the coin mockingly in front of her, "Dear, dear, heads."

He placed another bullet into the barrel, directly opposite the first.

"Fairly simple is it not?" he said, genially, spinning it again. "We will continue with this, either until I have those codes or the contents of her pretty little head are painted across the walls..."

"You bastard...If you hurt her, I'll kill you..." Lucas snarled, in a dark whisper, his eyes never leaving hers.

"What you mean like this?" he said, striking her across the face with the butt of the gun, splitting her lip. Lucas slammed his hands against the tiled floor, howling in anguish, tearing the skin on his knuckles, "You are not really in a position to be making threats Mr. North." He hissed, coldly.

The anger that had flashed across his face for a moment, colouring his words, vanished, instantly as he turned to Ruth,

"Really Miss Evershed, to save me repeating myself, as I fear, or perhaps _hope, _I may have to do rather a lot if we don't do this, there is only one thing I want. Those codes. One little string of numbers and letters and she leaves unharmed. Otherwise...Now then, attempt two. Miss Evershed?"

"I can't, there's nothing I. I'm sorry..." she said, turning desperately to Lucas.

"It's alright..." he murmured, his voice flat, emotionless.

"Please..." Elizabeta murmured, as he turned back towards her, raising the gun, "Please no." The second plea was choked through a sob as she closed her eyes and her shoulders began to tremble, partly from her tears and partly from terror.

"Vyeta." Lucas breathed, hoarsely, "Vyeta look at me, please." She turned her large, velvety brown eyes to stare into his deep blue ones. "Don't." He murmured. She nodded, shaking, refusing to break the eye contact between them until he stepped in front of her, blocking them and breathing,

"I'm afraid Ms Starkova, this is out of your control."

Lucas closed his eyes while Ruth did not believe it were possible for hers to be opened any wider as she stared at the screen in horror as the trigger was pulled once again.

Again they all breathed again as the gun found a blank.

"It would appear luck is with you my dear, now then, heads, or tails?"

"Tails." She managed to choke through her tears, the threat of harm coming to Lucas hanging over her head.

"Lucky indeed." He murmured, simply slotting the barrel in place and spinning it once more without adding a third bullet.

"Third time lucky Miss Evershed?" he asked, mockingly turning back to face her, gun resting casually at his side.

Ruth could not bring herself to speak and Elizabeta took the opportunity to stretch out a hand, her pale fingers closing around those of her captor as she whispered,

"Please...You can't...Do, do you have children?" she whispered, "I..I have a son, I have to pick him up from school in an hour _please..._"

He pulled himself away from her in disgust, turning away from the screen to answer her, giving Ruth the opportunity to whisper desperately to Lucas,

"Lucas I can't, you know I can't, it will put thousands of people at risk I-"

"You don't have to explain yourself to me Ruth. I understand, it's not your fault..." he murmured,

His words would have been far more convincing if he had been able to tear his eyes away from the woman in front of him.

"I did have a child..." he told Elizabeta softly, beginning to pace around the thing, "They're very special aren't they, and it is the cruellest thing you can do to a parent, to take their child away from them...Most unfortunately for you, Mr. North and his people do not care about separating parents and children, so I cannot see that I should either. Now." The sudden change in volume made them all jump as he abruptly turned back to the screen saying, "Miss Evershed, I think you've had more than enough time to ponder that, it is not a hard question, you're answer, if you please."

Ruth turned back to the screen, the poor woman was rocking backwards and forwards, twisting her fingers together in terror as tears ran down her cheeks, Lucas' soft, murmurs doing nothing to soothe her.

"I can't..." she whispered, hating herself.

"Shame." He replied, spinning around and pulling the trigger again without hesitation, sending her into hysterics as it once again hit an empty round and shredded her nerves in the process.

"Heads or tails?" he said, coldly.

She refused to answer, incapable of doing even that.

"Heads or tails?" he snarled, shaking her roughly,

"Heads." Lucas spat, looking sickened,

"Very well..." he said, a cruel smile twisting his lips, "You should have chosen yourself Ms Starkova..."

He calmly slipped another bullet into the gun, marking out the points of the compass in a triangular formation.

"Fifty fifty now, I would start saying your goodbyes, unless of course, Ruth, would you be so kind?"

Lucas turned to look at her a second before she answered. Tearing his eyes away from the woman on screen for the first time, something more than nothing in his intense eyes. She closed hers before saying in a flat tone,

"No..." she saw Lucas' eyes flicker away from hers and she breathed, "They won't, it's all a set-up, they won't really kill her..."

"Why not? They don't need her."

"They don't need her dead either, it's all psychological, it's all about control, remember?" she breathed, not sure she could keep this up if he started thinking with his heart and not his head. She had a feeling this was not just a pretty girl to Lucas either, she_ meant _something, more than Sara Caulfield or even Maya Lahan...

"Heads or tails? I suggest you pick this time." He told her, smoothly, flipping the barrel open again, bullet suspended threateningly over it.

"Heads." She whispered in a dead voice.

Her tears had run try and stubborn determination burned in her eyes as she looked at Lucas as the coin spun, as though in slow motion, through the air before them.

"Congratulations." He said acidly, returning the gun's insides to their proper place once more, slipping the bullet back into his pocket.

"Well?" he said, turning to Ruth.

She stared emptily at him and was about to tell him to go to Hell when Lucas' hoarse, strangled voice choked beside her,

"Ruth..."

She did not have to answer him however, Elizabeta distracted him for her,

"Lucas, no..." she breathed in Russian.

"Vyeta..."

"Whatever they want, it affects the people here and that means it affects my son, I would do anything to protect him..." she whispered to him before swapping to English and murmuring to Ruth, "Do not tell them anything..."

Ruth nodded, tears in her own eyes now as she turned to the man with the gun and said, "I can't tell you...I _won't."_

He sighed, beginning to tire of this game and the bloody stubborn buggers he had chosen to torture.

As he turned back to face her, Elizabeta began whispering in rapid Russian to Lucas, "My luck cannot last forever. If this is goodbye, then so be it."

"Don't, don't say that." He choked, voice cracking on the words.

"It is true." She snapped, fiercely, "I loved you Lucas...When you were taken, when they told me what you were, that did not change...It never really did...But I had to move on...We could never have been after that. But after all of these years I still think of you, and I know you thought of me in that place and I will never regret choosing to help the FSB to bring you home."

Tears were beginning to fall from her eyes again, but this time they were controlled, defiant, as the gun was levelled against her head once more.

She closed her eyes and they all felt their hearts leap into their throats, catching there as once again the trigger was pulled. The gun jammed.

She opened her eyes again and stared, unable to believe what was happening.

Jamal smiled in delight, revelling in their terror and pain.

"You have another chance." He said,

"Tails." She whispered, without being asked, resigned to the inevitable,

A fourth bullet was placed into the barrel and she knew. They all knew.

"Lucas." She breathed, "You have to promise me."

"I don't have to promise you anything we-"

"Yes, you do and you will." She snarled.

Ruth shook her head violently, unable to speak through the steady flow of tears streaming from her own eyes, body shaking.

"I am going to die Lucas." She whispered, "Stop this, we both know it to be true. I am going to die, and I will, I will but I need you to promise me that you will look after Nikki, swear to me that you won't let anything happen to him." She said urgently,

"I promise..." he whispered,

She nodded as Jamal raised the gun again and walked, with painful slowness towards her.

"Ruth..." Lucas said, desperately, she closed her eyes and refused to look at him, "Ruth, please." He tried again, his voice breaking.

Jamal hesitated.

"Lucas, no..." Elizabeta cautioned, though her own voice caught.

"I can't." Ruth murmured,

"Yes, yes you can, you have to. She has nothing to do with this, she shouldn't be here, she shouldn't be involved." He said, urgently, pulling himself across the floor to sit in front of her.

"Lucas, after everything we've been through." She said, pointedly, trying to convince herself as much as him.

"I deserved it, after everything I've done I deserved it, she doesn't. She doesn't deserve anything of this, she doesn't deserve to die!" he howled, placing his hands on her upper arms and forcing her to look at him.

"They never do Lucas!" she screamed, thoughts of Cypress and what had happened on her return flooding back to her as she now painfully empathised with Harry and the impossible position he had been put in, "They never do and that's why they're doing this! They're doing it because they want you to break. We can't let them win..." she finished in a strangled whisper, placing her hands on his arms, linking them together.

"This isn't about winning or losing. This isn't a game. This is life and death. This is about a six year old little boy not losing his mother because we wanted to play God with people's lives, not this time Ruth, _not _this time."

"No..." she said, "Lucas I can't you know I can't please stop this." She cried, "It will always be a game, we can never stop it...What if I tell them and they kill her anyway?"

"What if they don't?" he breathed, "I won't play dice with her life, I can't, please."

"No!" she screamed, tearing at her hair in frustration hating him, hating the grinning monster with the gun who was doing this to them," We have to, we have to because otherwise how many others will die?"

"I don't care about the others." He snarled, reminding her forcibly of herself, in his position, with someone she loved, someone she cared about.

"I do." The voice was Elizabeta's. She turned to Jamal, "Do it." She whispered, "Do it, she will tell you _nothing_."

The trigger was pulled. The gun exploded. She fell to the floor. Blood gently rained down upon the camera...

A/N:


	14. Dove's Cradle

**Chapter 14**

Dove's Cradle

"What did you make of him?" Ros asked quietly, jamming her numb hands into her pockets as they began to amble back to the car.

"Cold. Calculating. Manipulative...Obsessed with his late daughter; a tender Achilles Heel indeed...No traits that are good for Ruth or Lucas..."

"I can only imagine what he'll do to them next..." she murmured,

It had not been intended as a follow-up to Jamal's last words though they were both forcibly reminded of them at this point as Ros inwardly winced but knew better than to say anything. Fortunately, they were both distracted by Harry's phone.

"We're about to find out." He said, grimly, "Red Flash from The Grid, we have to get back now...Feel free to drive as though you've been possessed by a London taxi driver..."

They arrived back on The Grid within twenty minutes and hurried onto the floor to find Sofia and Tariq huddled around the computer in the AV suite and Cole hovering awkwardly alone by the kettle.

"What is it?" Ros asked, ignoring the out of place MI-6 officer whom she still had reservations about in favour of her team.

"Another video link..." Sofia spat in disgust,

"Bloody Hell..." Ros hissed,

"Productive little buggers aren't they..." Harry muttered, agreeing with her. "When did this turn up?" he asked no-one in particular,

"About twenty minutes ago...Hence the Red Flash." Sofia answered flatly without taking her eyes from the screen.

"Play it. Let's get this over with." He growled darkly,

Tariq obliged and they watched as the screen flickered, sickeningly into life yet again.

"What the Hell..." Tariq muttered, echoing the thoughts of the group as it quickly became clear that Ruth and Lucas were in the same room yet they were still being shown two, the second currently empty.

At this point, Elizabeta was forced to her knees in front of the camera rendering Tariq's question unnecessary.

"Jesus..." Ros breathed, recognising her immediately and knowing her better than most in the room having met her several times when she had worked her as an asset with Lucas.

"What?" Tariq asked, confused, "Who is she?"

He had not been on The Grid at the time of Lucas' immediate release from Russia and the fallout he and Elizabeta had been caught up in at the time. Since Lucas' favourite topic of conversation over coffee was not her, he did not immediately grasp the gravity and cruelty of her presence.

"Elizabeta Starkova. She was a short-term Russian asset of ours that we used a few years ago to get to the FSB in London." Harry began,

"And..." Tariq pressed, finding that this did not help much.

"And Lucas' ex-wife." Ros finished bluntly

"Oh shit..." Tariq breathed, joining them unpleasantly in the cruel reality they were dealing with, "When did they-"

"Two years into his sentence. She found out the truth about him, he hadn't told her before he was taken..." Harry said quietly,

"How did she get mixed up in this then?" Tariq asked, "They were separated six years before he even came back to the country..."

"The FSB turned her and used her as Lucas' handler." Ros explained.

"Excuse me? Handler?" Tariq repeated, shocked

Ros sighed and hastily provided him with the crash-course of Lucas' first year back on The Grid, "Lucas agreed to work for the Russians in order to get back. He kept up the pretence when he returned to London to give himself and MI-5 leverage with them. Elizabeta was approached and blackmailed into helping them. They told her Lucas could come home if she did..."

"Bloody Hell..." Tariq breathed, burying his face in his hands as he digested the implications of this, sorry he asked, "You said she _was _an asset..."

"Yes, for a few months." Ros replied, "She had a husband, a young son. Lucas pulled her out before she got in too out of her depth."

"So we've been protecting her since then?" he murmured, again echoing the thoughts of the many, "How the Hell did they get to her then?"

Harry shook his head and growled, "They've been one step ahead of us from the beginning. It's something we'll look into; let's see how far this goes first..."

He knew perfectly well that Lucas still cared for Elizabeta more than could be considered healthy and that, given his way, upon his return from Russia they would have picked up right from where they left off. As it turned out, she had had other ideas but that had not stopped him from harbouring feelings for her, especially considering the indirect role she had played for him during his captivity in Russia...

He was painfully aware that Jamal also knew this and was not sure how long the younger man would or could hold out if they threatened her...

"He must be shooting blanks." Sofia gasped as Jamal pulled the trigger for the first time, causing them all to jump.

Like Harry, she also knew how much Elizabeta meant to Lucas and resolved to ensure that the sadistic bastard who had planned this out suffered an excruciating death, regardless of the consequence.

"It would be too much of a risk for him otherwise. She could have been killed on the first shot and he would have achieved nothing..."

"I don't think so...I think it's real...He'll kill her and not lose a moment's sleep." Ros breathed, sickened as Jamal crooned, 'Heads or tails?' to the terrified woman. "She doesn't mean anything to him..."

"She does. She's a tool for him. That makes her useful. He can use her to get to Lucas." Sofia murmured, unable to look away from the petrified woman on screen as she breathed, "Torture tends to work best when the victim is alive...It's all psychological-"

"Exactly, it's psychological but it's not for Lucas' benefit. He doesn't know anything; Ruth does." Ros countered quietly, "Jamal's going all-in with Elizabeta now because there's no point playing a long game with her when this is more effective. If she doesn't talk for this she won't talk for anything from this angle. When it comes down to it, killing her is of more benefit to him than keeping her alive and using a different tactic.It's all psychological and they know _exactly _the psychological effects this will have on Ruth when, willingly or not, Lucas blames her for the death of the woman he loved."

"Shit..." Sofia muttered, knowing that she was right.

They watched, sure that all of the participants were acutely aware of this fact, Ros' words giving them all an unfortunate new perspective on the situation.

"Do it. She will tell you _nothing._" Elizabeta spat defiantly, long since having accepted the fact that, one way or the other, she was going to die here.

"Bastard." Sofia snarled, tears in her eyes as Jamal pulled the trigger and the feed cut.

They had all watched as Elizabeta overcame the terror that had engulfed her and had regained her composure, resigning herself to her fate. At the same time, the more self-control she gained, the more Lucas lost as he attempted to prevent something he had known from the beginning would be the only outcome.

It was agonizing for them all to watch as the broken man begged Ruth to spare Elizabeta knowing perfectly well that there was nothing she could do and in the end, Elizabeta had to take control of the situation, if only to wipe the smug smile from the bastard's face...

They were all quiet for what seemed like a long time until Tariq broke the silence, needing to do _something _to distract himself from what they were doing.

"God we've been stupid..."

"What do you mean?" Ros asked, thrown by this sudden observation,

"We've all been so busy analysing the methods he's been using to get the information, understandably maybe, but we've forgotten the implications of what he actually wants. In order for the manual override to be of any use, they need someone on board to actually manually override the ship's controls. If not a crew member at least someone at the port with access..."

"Have the crew been vetted?" Ros asked, latching on to something that she could make sense of and do something about in this damn operation.

"They will have been, by six." Sofia replied,

"So no then..." Harry said, lightly, "Tariq look into every crew member on-board that ship, if nothing comes up look into staff at the port. Remove every skeleton from their respective closets. If the methods are immoral, illegal, I don't care, yes to all...We need a break on this, soon." He said, before turning to Ros and Sofia, "Go to the safe house Elizabeta was staying at. Arrange extra protection for her family."

"You think they might go after them?" Sofia asked softly,

"At this point, I no longer have the ability to think about what this group are capable of. I think this has shown that we cannot allow morals or humanity to enter into the equation where they are concerned...And God help us if we get Lucas out of this mess only to have to tell him that we let something happen to the little boy he swore to his dead wife he would protect..."

"Which safe house were they at?" Ros asked quietly as she and Sofia got to their feet.

"Gold Tango, on the outskirts of London. Have a look around while you're there...See if they've left us anything..."

"What are you going to do?" Ros asked as Harry purposefully followed them from the room.

"I'm going to pay a friendly visit to the Home Secretary, see if he can't shed any light on the situation." He replied with grim cheerfulness.

"God rest his soul..." Sofia murmured.

...

Ros and Sofia arrived at Elizabeta's safe house a few minutes after a team of officers had quietly removed her husband and son from the house, feeding them some rehearsed lie about their loved one's whereabouts.

The two women slipped quietly into the now empty house.

Everything looked calm and peaceful, in its place. Nothing was disturbed...Perfection.

"Someone cleared up after themselves..." Ros murmured

"Not even the CSI team could find anything other than what they wanted us to..."

"So let's find that..."

After pausing in the hallway for a moment, both of them being struck by where they were and what they were doing, they crossed the room and both made a beeline for the enormous bookshelf in the corner.

They carefully removed all of the books on William Blake and placed them on the table, flicking through them, waiting, expectantly, for a note to fall from the well-worn pages.

"Nothing..." Ros murmured.

Both of them had been sure about the location of their message. So, either there wasn't one, unlikely; or there wasn't one contained within the pages of William Blake, even more unlikely.

They were quiet for a moment, temporarily stymied until Sofia asked slowly, "Who do you know that circles page numbers to keep track of their place in a book?"

"Obsessive, psychotic, sadistic Syrian terrorists?" Ros suggested lightly as a broad grin split Sofia's face.

"So, the question now is, if it means something..._What_ does it mean?"

"Well...If I was guessing, I would say a substitution cipher. The numbers relate to words..." Ros said, seeing the problem with this before Sofia took the liberty of pointing it out,

"OK, so the question now is; which book which page, which word? There are line numbers marked, and theoretically paragraphs as well but...Are any of the other books annotated?"

"No." Ros said, quickly flicking through them to confirm what she already knew.

"OK. So, this is the code...But do page numbers match with page numbers, or line numbers, or word numbers...We need more information or we'll be here forever and a day..."

"Everything in this house is ridiculously well-organised, yes?" Ros said, distractedly,

"Yes." Sofia muttered, not seeing the point of this, "If I didn't know better I'd say Lucas lived here..."

"Exactly. But look at the book shelf, the only ones that were in any kind of order were the William Blake ones..."

"So, the bookshelf was knocked over in a struggle and whoever put this room back together couldn't be bothered embracing their inner librarian..."

"Or, they embraced their inner Sherlock Holmes and put everything back in a very specific order..." Ros suggested softly, eyes dancing.

Sofia smiled, seeing the weight of this, "Page number corresponds to book, paragraph to line, and line to word..."

They began methodically pulling out books and compiling lists of words, carefully setting them down on a scrap piece of paper until their message revealed itself to them,

_She was sent from Russia with love_

_On to man's playground of the world above_

_Sealed with a whisper_

_Killed when he kissed her_

_Cradled away in the arms of a dove..._

"I have _no _idea what it means." Sofia sighed, throwing down her pen in frustration and pulling her fingers irritably through her hair.

"I think I do..." Ros murmured, carefully studying the words.

...

"Ros...Why are we at a cemetery?" Sofia asked, shivering in the cold as they drew up outside the foreboding black gates.

"Blame the Russians..." Ros replied mildly as they for out of the car and she led them into the heart of Highgate Cemetery.

"Believe me, I blame the Russians for all sorts of things and even I can't find a way to justify that here..."

"When Lucas first came back to London and the FSB assigned Elizabeta to be his handler, this is where they met..." Ros explained softly as they began to pick their way deeper into the rows and rows of headstones.

"They've come full-circle by bringing us back here then..." Sofia nodded, "Bastards...How the Hell do they know this? Elizabeta's safe house, this cemetery, Lucas' fixation with Blake...None of these things are exactly scrawled across billboards in London..."

"I don't know...Harry's right; they've always been one step ahead."

"I think a little more than that..." Sofia murmured darkly.

They walked further on in silence for a little while until, unusually, Ros broke it,

"How close was Lucas to Elizabeta?"

She was taking this rare opportunity to learn more about her mysterious, reticent colleague. For all his charm and people-skills, the outward display of warmth dissolved if he was confronted about his past. He was then likely to become about as approachable as an angry wasp and Ros had received the appropriate amount of information about him based on this.

Sofia hesitated, knowing better than most Lucas' aversion to discussing his past before deciding that Ros was too bloody stubborn to let this lie and countered, coldly, "How much is he going to fall apart after her death you mean?"

"Yes...And no..." Ros replied expressionlessly,

Sofia sighed, knowing that, for all her stony exterior, hidden very deep beneath the surface, Ros did actually care about Lucas and was more concerned as to the outcome of this operation than she would ever dare to admit. This more than anything else made her say, quietly,

"What do you want me to say? He loved her, he probably still does. They got _married..._You know the hoops the service would have made him jump through for that. He doted on her...You know she was pregnant when he was sent to Moscow?"

"No, I didn't." Ros said hollowly, surprised by this snippet of information, wondering if Lucas knew himself.

She was now fervently wishing that she had not decided to enquire further on the Shakespearian tragedy that was Lucas' marriage to Elizabeta.

"She miscarried shortly after he was imprisoned...They had been together for the best part of a decade before then. He would have rather died than let anything happen to her, still would...You heard what he said to Ruth...This will destroy him...It might be kinder just to leave him there."

The last sentence slipped out without her meaning to and Ros reacted appropriately, "You don't mean that...He'll get over it..."

"I'm not so sure..." she murmured, "We can officially consider his relationship with Ruth to be ruined. It was already on shaky ground after the Albany crisis, this will push it over the edge."

"She didn't have much of a choice. He must know that..."

"Doesn't mean he'll choose to see it..."

They walked on in silence, wending their way down the narrow gravel paths, the beautiful decorative angels hanging over the graves, loomed down upon them as they passed.

"Do you have a destination in mind or are you looking for some sort of sign?" Sofia asked, irritably, after around half an hour.

"Bit of both..." Ros replied evasively,

She had noticed that the other woman had been twitchy and on edge since their arrival at the graveyard. At first she had put it down to operational anticipation but now she was not so sure. She was about to question this when she was interrupted.

"God...There's your sign..." Sofia whispered, staring straight ahead and coming to an abrupt halt.

The scene would have commanded an eerie beauty about it had it not been so grotesque.

Nestled among the alcoves, a great, grey angel towered above them and had summoned a marble crypt, the edges of which had been expertly shaped with the fluted edges of a dove's wings rising from the belly of the earth.

Set upon it in a dark, gothic black dress, her clouds of raven hair arranged around her face, contrasting brilliantly with her pale skin and the bright marble was Elizabeta.

She looked almost peaceful; hands clasped, neatly together and lay across her abdomen, eyes closed, face smooth and mask-like. The only mar in her tranquillity was the small gunshot wound at her temple, a faint red ribbon of blood still just visible against her white skin.

Sofia swore under her breath in Russian as they observed the grim scene and approached the body. Up until this point they had both been privately harbouring the futile hope that it could have been a set-up, an illusion and that somehow she would still have been alive.

They both knew it had been stupid...

Ros gently removed a thin scroll of paper from beneath her delicately linked fingers and unrolled it,

_How many more must die before I get what I want? _

A/N: Thank you for reading and reviewing :)


	15. Fade To Black

Apologies for the slightly later than anticipated update, writing this did not come easily but I hope it's OK...

**Chapter 15**

Fade To Black.

The gunshot continued to echo around the confined box they were trapped in long after the video feed had cut out and the laptop had been removed, leaving them alone.

The faint, weak rays of sunlight that had accidentally stumbled into the cell seemed only to mock its inhabitants.

It was the first night of their imprisonment here that they had not spent huddled together for comfort and warmth, instead sitting, coldly, in opposite corners of the room, trying to avoid one another in the desolate box that forced them together.

Ruth had given in to sleep in the early hours of the morning, exhaustion overcoming discomfort and cold, numbing her to the horrors f the day and forcing the welcome oblivion of unconsciousness onto her.

When she had woken to find them sitting still in blackness despite the suns best attempts to push its way into the room it had only succeeded in illuminating the top half, deepening the darkness they were trapped in below.

Lucas had not moved or spoken since Elizabeta's death, remaining slumped, motionless, in the corner of the room.

His eyes were red rimmed but he was sitting perfectly still, his face blank, expressionless. So much so that she was not sure that she would have been able to tell the difference if someone had replaced him with a wax figure while she had been asleep.

It was only a shiver ran through his body because of cold that she realised both that he was still alive but also that she was still wrapped in his jumper.

Carefully peeling it off she cautiously crossed the room and draped it, gently, around his shoulders as she tentatively knelt to the ground beside him.

He wordlessly shrugged it off without looking at her.

It fell in a crumpled mass on the floor by her feet. She picked it up automatically, tears in her eyes fuelled by both pain and frustration. Knotting the thick, dark material between her anxious hands she whispered,

"Lucas..." he did not respond but she ploughed on regardless, "Lucas, please, I didn't think they would really go through with it, I thought that it was..."she began, trailing off, unable to finish her sentence given the outcome.

It was true. Up until the point the gunshot had sounded and the bloodstained camera had cut to black she had been sure it had been a fake. Sure that it was just a technique, a tactic, psychological mind games designed to break them. Something that had damned near worked.

Whatever temporary anger, bitterness and resentment she had harboured towards him after the way he had used and betrayed them in the Albany scandal, she would be lying if she said she felt nothing towards him.

They had worked together for a long time and she had trusted him...While that trust had been shattered between them it was not so easy to destroy the relationship between him, something that had left her confused. There was not an off-switch in her head she could just flick to make herself forget that she had ever cared about him and why.

Although at that particular moment in time she had wished that there was. Still, even had she not known him, it would still have been horrific, the fact that she did had just made it worse. It had cut her to the core to hear his agonised pleas, more desperate and more painful than his cries when they had physically tortured him, and to know how much he cared about that poor woman without having any idea of who she was.

The only way she had been able to force herself to deny them what they wanted was because she had been able to convince herself that they were bluffing, that it was all just psychological and that she had never been in any danger.

Lucas turned to look at her for the first time since she had been proved so wrong about Elizabeta's situation. The barely disguised contempt and disgust that burned intensely in his cold, blue eyes with something close to hatred almost made her wish that he had continued to ignore her.

"Don't..." he spat, voice cracked, "Don't lie to me Ruth..."

Was she lying? Had she truly believed that they would not hurt Elizabeta? Or had it been something convenient that she had told herself to make the truth easier to swallow, that she was now feeding him seeking forgiveness.

If she had truly believed it though...She would not need forgiveness.

"Tell me that you had to do it. Tell me that you didn't have a choice; that thousands of people would have been at risk. Feed me Harry's usual speech about impossible decisions for the good of the masses and protecting democracy and freedom but don't lie to me..." he breathed, eyes furiously boring into her.

"I-" she began but found the indignant retort catching in her throat and settled instead for the hollow and meaningless "I'm sorry..."

He turned away from her again at this and she could not say that she blamed him.

However he could not honestly say that he blamed her either. At least not justifiably.

He knew that it had been unfair of him to put even more pressure on her, whatever his relation to the victim, asking her to put thousands at risk, to compromise her job, her morals, everything that she had for him. He had had no right to make an impossible decision even harder for her.

The worst part was that he knew that, had he been in her position, he would have done exactly the same thing to her...

What did that say about the kind of human beings they were? What did that say about the kind of monsters this system forced them to become? What did that say about him?

He had known without hesitation that he would put her through _this_. Even with the hindsight of knowing exactly what this was, he would still make her go through it. Knew that he would willingly sacrifice someone that she loved for 'the greater good'. He would have no problem in hurting and irrevocably damage his relationship with someone that he cared about, someone he had worked closely with for years, who he considered himself to know, to trust, to care for; who he would take a bullet for without hesitation; who he had walked, unarmed, into something he knew was most likely to be a trap and would land him in his worst nightmare, on the off-chance that he could save, all in the name of the goddamned 'greater good'. "

The trouble he had with this and with the greater good in general was that it was not sitting in front of him. It did not have feelings, it did not know, did not care what he had done for it, what he had sacrificed, what he had destroyed for it. It could not feel pain or shed tears over what was lost. It was a nameless, faceless _concept. _

He would lose, hurt, sacrifice, kill, destroy, _die_ for a concept...

He would do everything he did and call it the right thing. He would do that and would have to trust that he believed strongly enough in the consequences of not acting for the greater good to allow him to live with his decisions. Would have to ask himself how many nameless people would have been killed, how many faceless families would have been torn apart and destroyed, how many supposedly innocent lives would have been ruined if he hadn't gone against every instinct he possessed and act on behalf of the people he did not and would not know in favour of people he had known and would know for the rest of their lives...

Somehow, he found that this didn't help...

"Who was she?" her quiet voice broke through his confused thoughts, drawing him back to reality again.

She had a fairly good idea, but somehow she felt like more than just one of Lucas' many flings, and she felt that she had to say _something..._

"My wife..." he replied, hollowly, in response to her look of shock he added, bitterly, "My ex-wife...She divorced my while I was in Russia..."

"Oh..." Ruth murmured, awkwardly falling in to silence, unable to think of anything else to say before finding the words tumbling from her mouth without warning or thought, "Her son, is he-"

"No." He said, quietly, unable to allow her to finish the sentence, "No, she re-married..."

"I'm sorry Lucas..." she breathed, wishing someone had thought of another way to say that so she didn't sound like such a bloody broken record.

He nodded and then they were both quiet as they began an uncomfortable forensic examination of their hands.

"You know...After everything that happened with Albany I didn't think I would ever be able to trust you again. Not properly at least...It wasn't so much that I was angry with you, that didn't last long. I just...You had betrayed us, used us, ruined everything we had and it didn't matter to me that you had done it for the greater good, that it was the right thing to do. I still felt betrayed. I still couldn't trust you...The only thing that's stopping me from falling apart here is, ironically enough, the fact that we're _here._ Before, before all of _this _I thought we were finished but...As touching as it sounds, there's no-one else I would rather be stuck in a horrifying Syrian prison with." His lips twitched at this and she went on, softly, "I trust you Lucas. I trust you to hold me together in here because I sure as Hell can't trust myself right now...I know that I can't just ask you to forget about what's happened, that because we need each other in here means that I should expect you to be numb to what they did, to not let it affect you or to forgive me because you feel that you have to. I know that I do but...I need to be able to cling to the faint idea that we might be able to, even after everything, that maybe...I don't know..." she trailed off, not entirely sure where or how she had wanted to end up now, the desperate flood of words that had built up within her initially, fuelling her desire to say _something _into the eternal silence had long since dried up.

He let out a humourless laugh as he leaned against the wall, closing his eyes as he attempted to orchestrate his thoughts into coherent sentences,

"God look at us, so beautifully broken together..." he murmured, poetically, "I don't know, I, I think you're right; I couldn't give up on what we had had, I still won't...But at the same time...I just...It feels wrong to just forget about...This shouldn't have happened..."

"No, it shouldn't, they should never have taken it that far it was cruel but this isn't the time or the place for grief, it doesn't show her the respect she deserves. This is what they want-"

"Well then it may well be what they get." He snapped, cutting her off and leaving her in no doubt that she had said the wrong thing,

"I know, that's not, I'm sorry-"she stammered,

"Don't." He snarled, pulling away from her.

"Don't you either." She snapped back, "I know what it's like, I know what you're going through what you would go through and I still had to make that choice Lucas. I had to...You remember that we are _both _victims here. Do you think that I wanted to make that decision? Do you think that, had they given me any other choice that I wouldn't have picked the one that spared her life? I had to do it. I had to make that impossible decision because it was the only one that I could make."

Angry tears were falling from her eyes she wiped them away as she continued, softer now but with the same intensity as before,

"I never really understood Harry's decision. He destroyed everything I had, everything I had ever had with a few sentences and I hated him for it. I hated how cold and how calculating he had been, how little he seemed to care. Up until a few hours ago, I still hated him for it. I accepted it; I moved on, I even learned to let myself trust him again. But I couldn't forgive him and I couldn't forget. There is no way to explain the way this feels. None. I am so sorry...So sorry. But at the same time I know I have no reason to be...It's not my fault Lucas. I didn't pull the trigger. I didn't kill her." She broke off, staring at the ceiling as she attempted to compose herself. "I can't even make myself believe that..." she muttered, "I feel so guilty for, for not saying anything for not stopping them but how would we have all felt when her son and thousands of other people's sons and daughters and mothers and wives paid the same price...I've been on both sides of this Lucas. I've been where I am but I've also been where you are as well. Take it from someone who knows..._This _is worse..."

She was shaking and hot tears were still rolling down her cheeks despite her best attempts to stop them but she forced herself to continue.

"I _know _that me telling you that she dies for the greater good, that thousands of people didn't die because she did, that she didn't die in vain and that if you hate me because of her death you're playing into the hands of the people that are responsible for her death. I know that one of that makes a blind bit of difference to you because when it comes down to it, when you strip away all of the heroism and the fantasy and the poetry, when you don't use fancy, flowery words to dress it all up that they shot her because I wouldn't tell them what they wanted to know. She was killed because I was holding onto morals and naivety. She died because of me and there is no way to make you understand what, what that's-"

She broke off, crying uncontrollably, rocking backwards and forwards, shaking, hands trembling over her mouth as she was overcome with grief and the realisation of what she had done.

He was not quite sure how or why but he found his arms tentatively wrapped around her shoulders and for a long time they simply sat, utterly lost and confused about their feelings towards each other, only knowing that they had cared and that right now they were all they had left to care about.

"I'm sorry too..." he murmured, barely audible after she had run out of the strength required to cry and simply lay against him, shivering and murmuring continual, broken promises into nothing...

"For what?" she whispered, softly,

"For not being able to do this..." he replied softly, moving away from her again, "Not...Not now at least..."

"But you-"

"Yes. The difference is, I understand but I can't accept...With harry, you thought that you needed understanding to move forwards but it's not enough. I have understanding, believe me, I do...I know why you did it, your reasons behind them, all of them, so I understand. So much so that I would have done the same thing in your position...But I can't accept it Ruth, not now...You need both, and I need time..."

She nodded, pretending to understand. She did not want to show him, to show _them _how vulnerable she was. She was fairly sure that if one of them had walked in and offered her a pot of tea in exchange for the codes, at that minute, she would have agreed, if only to escape their burden.

As cold as it sounded, she needed him. She needed him to accept things _now _because she was not entirely sure that she could last the length of time it would take him otherwise...

Lucas sat quietly in the corner, completely and utterly confused. This was a state of mind he had come to expect and accept when dealing with women...Most women. In that respect, probably the only respect, Ruth had been simple. The constant. He had always knew where he stood with her it was either black or it was white. _This _however was a very murky grey.

He cared about her. That much was obvious everything he had done in here, including landing himself in here in the first place, had been done to protect her.

Now however, he was doing something that he knew would cause her more pain than anything else they had done to them so far...

Of course he had. The woman he had loved had been executed in front of him. Murdered. And the woman he was now trapped in a cell with had done nothing to help her. Of course she hadn't. She had done what she had had to, what any MI-5 officer would have done, certainly what he would have done. Two wrongs don't make a right. There _is _no right and wrong in this game. There were only decisions they could live with and the decisions that you couldn't...

Ruth had made her decision and now she would live with it. She would have to. He watched as her muscles tensed in response to something that only she could see or feel and reminded himself of something she had said. They were both victims.

Like it or not, she had been right. She had been pained and tortured by that just as much as he or Elizabeta. She was still human. She would feel guilty and hurt by that for a long time to come no matter his feelings.

He watched as she shivered from cold and unconscious impulse informed him inadvertently of a conscious decision.

He still cared about her. He had no right to punish her when he knew that they were already doing so, not to mention what she was doing to herself. He was not about to start playing God in here with her as well.

And so he decided as he gently covered her again with the thick, black jumper, painfully lowering himself onto the floor beside her, allowing her to unconsciously huddle against him once more for warmth as they waited out the endless cold.

A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing!


	16. Restricted Access

**Chapter 16**

'Restricted Access'

Sofia quietly and sadly looked down at the cold slab before her and closed her eyes, massaging her temples and trying to stop her hands shaking. It all seemed a little surreal, not something she often had to deal with in the cruel world she had accepted and embraced fully as reality. Elizabeta had never been someone that she had met but the fervour and passion with which Lucas had spoken about her, particularly in Russia, she felts as though she had.

She did not though, why she had volunteered for this. To take her body to the morgue. She did not consider herself to be overly superstitious but for reasons from Russia that were better left alone, she despised graveyards and morgues.

She was not afraid of death, not afraid to die. She couldn't. Not if she wanted to leave this job at the end of the day with her sanity. But even so, she could not shake their effects on her. The quiet, all consuming hush that hung around them felt like the cries of abandoned souls and sent shivers up her spine.

She shook herself, attempted to discard these more fanciful observations that she normally would not stand for. It did not help matters.

God only knew how long they had spent in that damned graveyard. As it turned out, Ros had been quite right to go there and to continue following her instincts. Their way had been better than some innocent, unsuspecting mourner there to honour a loved one stumbling accidentally across the grotesque scene, clearly that had been the desired effect of the sadistic bastards and she was glad it had not come to that. Nevertheless she could not pretend that it had been a pleasant experience for her. She had grown more and more on edge and uneasy the deeper Ros had ploughed into the cemetery's heart. She knew that her senior officer had picked up on her discomfort, how could she have failed to? But for whatever reason she had left it alone. Something she was grateful for.

Despite all of that however, she had agreed to be ferried to this vile hovel with Elizabeta's body and she was still trying to determine why...A part of it probably had to do with defiance if she was honest. Whether she had said it or not, Ros had it in her head that she did not like graveyards, something that automatically made her want to set up a tent there for the damn pig-headed stubbornness that had plagued her since she was a child. However, since that had seemed inappropriate, this had been the next best thing.

She knew that was not all though. The young woman that she had agreed to ferry to the morgue had made quite an impression on her, on all of them. She was nothing, had been an MI-5 asset for a few months, had been married to a spook for a few years without knowing it, had been used by the FSB but overall she was nothing special. In the end, she had taken control of the situation from the two trained MI-5 officers and God knows how many of her captors, she had ended things on her terms, whether anyone else saw it that way or not. She respected her for that and found it easy to see now why Lucas had fallen for her as quickly and as painfully as he had and why he had fought so hard and jumped through so many hoops in order to marry her...

None of that really mattered anymore.

She was dead, and he was on the road to dying. Standing alone in a morgue was not going to help them. However brave she had been was no longer of any importance. Harsh as it was, she had played her part in this. 'Dead men tell no tales' and philosophical conversations with oneself over dead bodies didn't get you much further.

Abruptly turning and leaving her, Sofia pulled the mobile from her pocket and checked. She had several messages from people on The Grid, namely Tariq, but a more recent one that had come in a few minutes ago from Harry telling her that she was needed.

Punching buttons furiously, as though they were responsible for her foolish decision to waste time here, she called Harry as she left,

"Sofia...Not lost in the land of the dead are we?"

"Not quite, though it may have been preferable to continuing on in this one."

"Well I'm afraid I need you to." He told her, "I need you back on The Grid, Ros and I have finally been granted permission to see 'his majesty' the Home Secretary, I need you to take over looking into the crew members on that ship, Tariq's otherwise engaged with pulling information from the videos."

_Lucky Tariq, _"I'll be twenty minutes."

...

When she returned to The Grid she found it, unsettlingly, to be as silent and desolate as the place she had just left. Harry and Ros had gone a few minutes before she had arrived to corner the poor Home Secretary moments after his meeting with The Prime Minister. Tariq had closeted himself in the sectioned office that had been given to him, forcing himself to re-watch the videos and dissect them in an attempt to get a lead on Lucas and Ruth's location. He was clutching at straws but she could not blame him. They were all getting desperate. Something the Home Secretary would no doubt be made aware of fairly soon.

Taking a few seconds to compose herself and make a coffee, deciding against attempting to approach Tariq and offer him one, she then slunk back to her desk and slumped into the chair. They had all known that their beds were going to become neglected in favour of caffeine and matchsticks when Ruth and Lucas had been taken and none of them would complain about this. Most unfortunately, the area of their brains that controlled sleep had not been informed of the seriousness of their situation and were still insisting that they get some. As a result, they were all exhausted.

Sofia began picking through the files of the crew members. Tariq had them all saved and easily accessible on their local network before he had become distracted by a brainwave relating to the videos.

There were not many crew members on board, owing to the nature of the vessel they were on, and it did not take long for her to realise that they all had excellent records, not a hair out of place on any of them. MI-6 had chosen well and Harry's hunt for skeletons seemed to be going unanswered. They were all perfect...A little _too _perfect. There had to be something. There was always something...

"How are you doing?" the flat voice was soft and cracked but it made her jump as though something had shrieked at her from the rafters.

"They're clean...Squeaky...You?"

"Nothing..." he mumbled, "Yet." He added, defiantly, "You want a coffee?"

"No, no thanks I'm good." She replied, turning back to the screen.

Something was off about this. Something was wrong. Someone was hiding in plain sight. Undercover of the glowing references and pristine record, someone was lying about something. Snow White didn't exist in this world and definitely not in theirs.

When Tariq returned she was staring, intensely at the screen, comparing notes, knowing she had found something but unable to fully understand exactly what it was...

"What have you got?"

"What-?" she muttered, distracted,

"You've got that look about you. What have you found?"

"I'm not sure...It could be nothing, or it could be everything. Six were thorough when they went about finding these guys, for a change. However, one member was vetted and added to the program two weeks before it was due to leave port whereas everyone else was chosen months before."

"Did they give a reason for it?"

"Yes. The original crew member that they picked out fell ill just over two weeks before they were due to leave, ended up in a hospital, they were then forced to replace him. All of the checks were done in exactly the same way and all turned up completely clean..."

"It could just be a coincidence. People do get sick that's not unheard of and he still checks out...It doesn't look as though he was forced into it by someone else does it?"

"Not on the surface no..." she said, sure that she had something at last and was reluctant to let it go.

"Run a search on him, see if anything pops up." Tariq suggested, also intrigued by the potential lead, taking a seat beside her.

RESTRICTED ACCESS

"Restricted?" She murmured, raising her eyebrows, "Denied is fuck off, restricted...That's a red flag to a bull I'm afraid..."she murmured,

"You cannot hack into MI-5's databases..." Tariq muttered,

"Technically, I can, it then just comes down to a question of whether or not I _should..."_she replied with a wolfish grin.

They both recoiled at the sight of the next screen, "That solves that problem...MI-5's databases can be left intact..." she muttered.

...

"On a scale of a three-legged race horse to Mary Poppins...How helpful do you think he's going to be?" Ros enquired, lightly,

"A two-legged race horse..." Harry replied, darkly, "One I shall take pleasure in flogging if he proves to be as useless as he usually is...Time's running out here, I want them back in one piece and I want the threat that this group poses to Britain removed regardless of the Home Secretary's need to play house with every nation that comes knocking on his door..."

"You think he's keeping something from us? Protecting something or someone?"

"I think everyone is at this point. And it's beginning to piss me off..."

"Home Secretary." Harry said, grimly, as they strode purposefully into the office, reluctantly shaking hands with the unctuous man behind the desk.

"Harry, and the lovely Ms Myers, what can I do for you?"

"Something other than the nothing you've done these past few days." Harry replied, shortly, irritation and desperation having long since displaced manners, "I want information on that ship in Syria; I would go as far as saying that I need it, now preferably."

Ros settled herself in her chair fully prepared to enjoy this, despite their dire situation.

"Well I, I would love to help you Harry, really I would but I'm afraid I can't." He blustered, before adding his ill-conceived two cents, "Besides, I can't really see why you would _need _this information, this group have not levelled any direct threats against-"

"Haven't levelled any direct threats?" Harry snarled, voice dangerously quiet, "They haven't been sending you postcards with details of terror attacks because they've been too busy making videos detailing the torture of two of my best officers. Something which I consider to be a bloody direct threat. You'll forgive me if I feel that I _need _this information before we get to that point and before these bastards can tear any more chunks from my people."

"I understand that you're upset Harry-"

"I'm not upset, upset is for old women whose buses are late, I'm bloody furious. You are telling me, right now, categorically, that you have no information, need to know basis or otherwise, that could lead me to my officers?"

"I, well I-"

"Think hard about this, because if I find out that you have a _shred _of information relating to the whereabouts of my officers, I can assure you that they'll be fishing bits of you from the Thames before the end of the month."

"What did you just say to me-?" he snarled, leaping to his feet,

"You heard me."

"Well you hear me now. Stay out of it. If you can get your people out of this go ahead, but unless these people start hurling bombs at London, you'll get nothing from me. This is bigger and more important than your officers however _valuable _they may be to you. Now get out of my office. Both of you."

Harry turned on his heel and strode from the office. Ros also rose from her chair and murmured to the Home Secretary before leaving,

"Be careful who you choose as your enemies and who you choose as your friends. The implications of those decisions are 'bigger and more important' than both of us." She breathed, threateningly, before adding, poisonously sweetly, "Have a good day Home Secretary."

...

"With all due respect Miss Fletcher, you have been engaged in illegal activities attempting to hack into highly classified government files."

"Believe me I did more than attempt and-"

"Well in that case, need I remind you that I am perfectly capable of having you arrested and imprisoned?"

"Go for it because, with 'all due respect' you'll be arresting and imprisoning yourself along with me when I make it perfectly clear to your superiors that your decisions have led to the imprisonment and torture of two of our officers."

"You can't make that perfect-"

"Oh but I can, I told you, I did far more than 'attempt'...You really want me to share what I've found?"

Harry had expected that, after losing his temper with the Home Secretary and developing a migraine as a result, that he would have been able to return to The Grid and collapse in his darkened office nursing either paracetamol or whiskey, whichever happened to come to his hand first.

He had _not _however, expected the situation he now found; the imminent outbreak of world war three in the middle of his department.

"What the Hell is going on?" he demanded of no-one in particular.

"One of your officers has been hacking into classified CIA files, shockingly I was informed of this since my superiors are not happy." The woman who had been seconds away from murdering Sofia spat in response.

"Carla, nice to see you as ever." Harry replied, mockingly, "Sofia, I see you've met our current CIA liaison officer, Carla James?"

"I have now." Sofia replied, darkly,

"Both of you, my office if you please."

"Explain." Harry snapped after slamming the door behind them,

Both women waited, glaring daggers at the other but neither of them spoke, not sure whom he was addressing,

"Miss James, if you please?" he said, forcing Sofia to conceal a satisfied smile wit difficulty,

"Excuse me? What is this Harry? I come here and tell you that one of your people has been fucking about in our systems and you want _me_ to explain myself?"

"Yes, I do. I want you to explain why a nation that is, allegedly our closest ally, has been deliberately withholding information that they know to concern current and very real threats both to this country and to my officers."

"Because actions like this tell me that you people can't be trusted."

"Bullshit. We wouldn't _be _in this position at all as I would not have been desperate enough to use extreme methods to obtain information relating to the return of people I consider close friends because without it, we are being forced to watch their torture twice a day." Sofia snapped, "Feel free to mistrust us now although from what I've seen I don't think you're in any position to start lecturing about trust."

"And _you _are not in the position to be playing games." She hissed in return,

"Watching people tortured is not my idea of a game."

"Thinking you can play me into believing your bullshit is a very dangerous game to be playing indeed. You're bluffing."

"Then do what you should have done when you marched in here in the first place. Arrest me. Throw me to the wolves for attempting to break in...You willing to take the risk that I won't destroy you and your entire organisation because you think I'm just playing then you go for it."

"Whatever you're doing Miss James can I suggest that you do it quickly because time is rather short and I am becoming _extremely _tired of useless people wasting my time." Harry broke in.

"You consider yourself exceptionally lucky that this decision is not up to me Miss Fletcher. Know that I will be notifying my superiors of your comments and you can guarantee that I will be back for your head." She turned and stalked from the office.

"What did you find out?"

"That she's a liar...And she would make a terrible poker player." She replied, smoothly,

"I thought you were one of the best?" Harry teased,

"Oh I got in alright, but not even I can bring back documents that they deliberately removed, that requires a different talent called 'magic' not my forte I'm afraid."

"Why were you trying to access confidential CIA files anyway?"

"Because I think they're involved in Syria. One of the crew members of that ship was added to it two weeks before they left port as opposed to two months like everyone else. They said that the original crew member fell ill and had to be replaced at short notice."

"You said bullshit and started digging I presume?"

"Yes, but I was blocked from my digging fairly quickly, 'Restricted access'-"

"The fence you want to climb over-"

"So climb I did. They shut me out before I could find anything of use but the fact that they're hiding something means that they had something to hide which means that they're involved..."

"That fits with what we got from our Syrian informant..." Ros said from the door, making them both jump,

"Didn't your parents tell you not to listen at keyholes?" Harry grumbled, more annoyed that it had taken him this long to notice her more than anything else,

"Yes, most unfortunately they said nothing about standing at open doors." She replied mildly, moving further into the room and taking a seat by Sofia who said,

"As far as I remember your informant was inconveniently dead...Been neglecting to tell us that you moonlight as a psychic medium Ros?"

"Not quite, some messages can be received from beyond the grave...You remember, 'C1' the symbols he had carved into the underside of the cabinet, what if it didn't mean C1 at all, what if it was 'CI' on the roads to becoming 'CIA' before a bullet in the brain had other ideas?"

"That would mean that the Syrians know or at least suspect CIA involvement."

"No wonder they want the codes for that ship so badly..." Sofia muttered,

At this point the door opened and Tariq burst through it, ignoring Harry's indignation and babbling in something that sounded like a foreign language,

"I narrowed the search radius, based on how far Jamal could be from us if he made that call from the foyer and was back in time for the video. Once I'd done that it cut down the possibilities to anywhere that he could get to in about an hour, it meant that I could also get each of the parts of the video and trace their IPs within that radius and-"

"Tariq, breathe and then tell me, in very simple words, the bottom line." Ros interrupted as Tariq was turning blue,

"I've found them."

A/N: Oh how the plot thickens, hopefully plausibly, thanks for reading and reviewing!


	17. The Perils of Sentimentality

A/N: Apologies for any errors or inconsistencies, was written in a bit of a rush :) Enjoy!

**Chapter 17**

The Perils of Sentimentality

"_I've found them..."_

"What?" several voices chorused simultaneously,

"I know where they are." Tariq replied, attempting to contain his excitement.

He unrolled the large tube he had tucked under his arm that turned out to be a map of London and the surrounding area.

"I narrowed the search area and that restriction gave me only one possible location from the information I was able to strip from the videos. They're here." He said, triumphantly, marking a large building just outside of London, completely alone.

"You're sure?" Harry said, quietly,

"Positive."

"What is it?" Sofia asked, quietly, staring at the red circle he had marked on the page as if trying to convince herself that it was real.

"It was a mental asylum years ago. It's been abandoned for a while but apparently our productive Syrian friends have redecorated since then." He explained, grimly,

"Why can they never set up shop in old chocolate factories..."Sofia muttered,

"I'll call CO-19; have them meet us out there." Ros said, in a business like tone.

"Hang on." Harry said, quietly,

"Hold on? What do you mean hold on? Hold on so they can make one more video for good measure?" She snapped, "You were the one making death threats towards the Home Secretary in order to find them don't you hold on me!"

"We cannot allow personal feelings to cloud our judgements here-"

"We can't our they can't? I don't give a damn what they do afterwards Harry, they are two of my best officers and I intend to get them back-"

"And get them back we will, but we need a plan."Harry replied, "There is more at stake here than Ruth and Lucas, and while they may be our primary concern, they will not be the primary concern of those who we are ultimately answerable to. After what happened with Albany we must be careful or we risk having this team dissolved and reformed, likely not containing any of us. We need something that shows we are doing this with the interests of national security, and not just to get our officers back."

"That should be reason enough."

"It should but it's not." Harry snapped, "We don't set the rules but we must abide by them. If it comes down to a decision between keeping the Gods happy and saving their lives I would choose them, of course, but for now, we have the luxury of doing both..."

"Well fortunately these bastards do pose a threat to national security. So we engineer our 'rescue attempt' as a raid on a dangerous terrorist group and just happen to pick Ruth and Lucas up as an afterthought?" Sofia clarified quietly,

"Exactly. And that requires more organisation that calling the muscle and stomping all over them until you reduce everything to dust Rosalind, a little finesse perhaps."

"You can't save the world with a cream tea party."

"No, but perhaps it can save Ruth and Lucas along with our jobs..."

"Do you have plans to this building?" Sofia asked Tariq.

"Yes...They should have printed by now..."

Tariq returned with the blueprints but also with the laptop looking grim.

"What's wrong?" Sofia asked as he spread the prints on the table and turned the screen round to face them,

"They've sent us another message."Harry swore violently but Tariq cut him off saying, "Not in the way you think, it's a word document, not a video."

"What does it say?"

Tariq brought it up and let the same the latest literary efforts of Jamal,

_How does one drown in a desert?_

"He's losing his touch..." Ros said in clipped tones, "Apparently we're not worthy of flowery poetry anymore..."

"We don't need flowery poetry..." Sofia said.

The colour had drained from her face at the sight of the words and more likely in response to her immediate comprehension of their meaning,

"What does it mean?"

"Water boarding." She replied, harshly, "A common side effect is something known as 'dry drowning'. Only a little amount of water hitting the throat is required to cause a laryngospasm. It causes the throat to close itself off in an attempt to protect the body, theoretically preventing any water entering the lungs but it also prevents air entering them either. 'Drowning in the desert' is a reference to this as it only requires a small amount of fluid..." her face darkened as she added, coldly, "We're getting previews. That's what they're going to do to them next..."

They all paused to digest this. All of them knew that Lucas had been waterboarded on at least one occasion in Russia and that he had no desire to repeat the experience.

"This could be beneficial for us..." Harry murmured, surprising them all,

"Forgive me for being dense but I may need a little more clarification as to _why _you think torturing one of your officers is suddenly beneficial." Ros said, drily,

"Look at the size of this facility; it's not exactly a mansion." Harry said, studying the plans, "None of these rooms are large enough to comfortably accommodate this kind of torture."

"They'll have to think outside the box..." Sofia replied, cottoning on,

"Outside?" Ros suggested, indicating it on the plans,

"That would be my bet..."

"And if you'll notice." Sofia said, smiling now as she realized _exactly _why this was beneficial to them, "There are tunnels underneath them, for Snow White and her seven dwarves to crawl through." Sofia smirked at Ros, indicating an underground basement extending out beneath the building.

"Snow White's had enough of sneaking around in tunnels." She replied, "She would prefer something with a little more muscle, a little less finesse."

"So what do you suggest?" Harry asked, becoming rather concerned over the slightly maniacal grin he received in answer.

...

"Do you ever sleep?" Ruth enquired as she pulled herself, reluctantly from it, returning to reality only to discover Lucas sitting a foot to her left, leaning against the wall, eyes closed but definitely still awake.

"At random intervals." He replied, the coroners of his mouth twitching slightly, but without opening his eyes.

"What's wrong? What's happened?" she asked shrewdly, eyes narrowed, knowing that he was steeling himself to tell her something.

"Besides the fact that we're trapped in a prison with a group of crazed Syrian extremists who seem to have developed a liking for torturing us when their bored?"

"Yes."

"This..." he replied, pushing a thin slip of paper that had been delivered under their door an hour or so ago towards her.

She stared at it. One single sentence and he had lost the little colour he had had remaining.

_How does one drown in a desert?_

"What is it?" she breathed, "What does it mean?"

"It's what they're going to do to us next..." Lucas muttered, hoping that she would connect the dots and not force him to spell it out for her. Fortunately, for some reason, intelligence interpretation was one of Ruth's strong points,

"They wouldn't..."

"I'm fairly sure they would."

His mouth was dry and it was only now that she realised his hands were shaking despite the fact he had them so tightly wrapped around one another that he was cutting off the circulation to them.

"Where are they Lucas?" she murmured,

"What do you mean?" he asked, genuinely confused by this,

"Harry, Ros, everyone, why are they just leaving us here?"

He laughed, hoarsely at this, carefully shifting his position to avoid tearing the raw skin on his back, "Because they don't have a choice." He replied, bitterly, "Eight years in Russia and I still had to sell my soul to the devil in order to come back."

She blanched at this and hissed, "You don't expect us to come for us?"

"I expect them to try but this group know what they're doing. They know the repercussions Harry and the team will face if they come here for us alone without any other reason. If there's no threat to national security, they can't go chasing after every wayward officer, especially not after what happened with Albany. So far, they've only threatened us without threatening Britain directly. They can look for us, they will, but they can't come and get us unless they have a tangible threat to the country and can say that they picked us up as collateral."

"Collateral? Is that all we are to them? Collateral?" she whispered,

"Yes and no." He replied, "To them, we're more than that, friends colleagues, more...To the big bad world, collateral is all we ever can be. Remember Ruth, we don't exist. How can you find something you never had to lose in the first place?"

"We are something to someone. That should make us worth finding..."

"Maybe for the someone but not for everyone else...Trust me Ruth, if you sit here and start blaming everyone under the sun other than the ones whom the fault lies with because you can and because you have no control over the ones who are to blame. It won't get you very far..."

Not for the first time, she wondered how he was holding it together in here; how he had kept his sanity...

"What do you think they're all doing?" she murmured, softly, wondering in light of his recent words what they would be doing.

"Well...Harry will have barricaded himself in his office with a year's supply of Scotch and a phone so he can shout at the various people he blames for this mess...Ros will be prowling around The Grid as she usually does, pretending that she's made of stone whenever anyone's around to see and falling to bits when they're not. Sofia will be doing the only thing Sofia knows how to do. Running. And Tariq will be building a nuclear death ray..."

He was rewarded by a soft laugh at this, "I knew there was a reason we put up with him..."

"If there's a way to get us out, they will...Thinking anything other than that and you'll lose your mind."

"They haven't managed to take that from me yet?"

"Not quite." He replied with a small smile,

"Lucas." She said, softly, he looked at her quietly, "Thank you..."

He dipped his head slightly in acknowledgement and gave her shoulders a small squeeze.

He had not completely forgiven her. How could he have? No matter how much he told himself that she was right, that it had not been her fault, there was still a part of him that remembered the cold look in her eyes when he had begged her to spare Elizabeta and how she had told him no.

Whether he should have asked or how much of a choice she had, he could not get the thought out of his head.

He knew that their relationship was built on a foundation of terror and necessity, neither of them particularly good for building anything lasting. However for now it would hold. They both needed the other in here, however much they were willing to admit that fact or not.

He knew full well that there was still a part of her that would not allow her to trust him outside these walls as he now had for her. Reason could only go so far. Experience and personal feelings always intruded at some point, however well they were shut out.

They both jumped as the door opened and several masked figures burst into the room.

Out loud he told Ruth it would be alright. From the privacy of his own head however the only words that were currently filtering through were neither particularly helpful nor appropriate in civilised conversation.

They were both hauled, roughly from the room and dragged outside.

Ruth still had Lucas' thick black jumper but save from a thin, half buttoned cotton shirt he had nothing to protect him from the elements.

They were led outside into a large, square, cobblestone courtyard. The towering grey stone walls, the faint green cracks of vegetation attempting to force their way up between the rough stones under their feet, the light dusting of soft white snow that continued to fall from the heavens that coated the ground below all combined eerily to remind him forcibly of Russia.

This did nothing to calm his jangled nerves.

A gun was placed against Ruth's head as Jamal helpfully indicated the board lying at centre stage in the courtyard. The thick buckled straps that were drawn across it were dyed a faint red.

He allowed himself to be forced onto and bound to the board. His chest was already contracting painfully and his heart desperately throwing itself against his ribcage, slamming into the bones as it stubbornly attempted to escape the broken prison it was forced to call home.

However the Syrians had their own barbaric twist to add to the horribly familiar event as they drew a tight blindfold around his eyes.

Despite the fact it made no difference, he closed them, blocking out the world and attempting to numb himself to everything, forcing his tense muscles to react, dealing with this in the only way he knew how to.

...

Ros crouched along the outside of the thick grey stone wall, becoming irritated as the long grass tickled her ankle, skirting around the perimeter in order to rejoin Sofia.

When she found the younger woman once again she pulled out her phone and let Harry know that they were both in position.

"And now..." Sofia breathed as they both sank to the soft, wet ground,

"We wait..." Ros finished, hating this almost as much as she did.

It was difficult to tell exactly what was happening as they heard people moving into the courtyard. The unmistakeable dejected shuffle of prisoners and the overconfident stride of their captors falling on their ears but the more helpful sound of voices giving their end of what was going on and eerie, hushed quality that somehow made it worse. Like the suspense being amplified in a silent horror film.

They waited, their eyes occasionally flicking towards one another to check as they waited. And waited. And waited. Their blood rushing through their veins too fast and their hearts hammering to keep up, chests heaving internally their nerves were jangled. Externally, both of them looked as though they were carved from the same cold stone as the wall they were hunched against.

"What do we do?" Tariq muttered to Harry from the doorway of his office.

"We wait." He replied, quietly,

"Something about this doesn't feel right..." he said, quietly,

Harry looked at him curiously. It was not like the younger man to talk in this way. He was firmly bolted onto reality and the furthest he ever strayed from it was the internet. He had to admit that he too did not feel good about their plan.

All of the elements they had thought out were well thought out, they had more man-power and more gun-power than their opposition, more co-ordination, more training, more experience and vitally, surprise. And still. Still he felt that it would not be enough.

Their opponents had been ahead of them the entire time. Almost as though they were being informed of their moves before they made them. To allow something like this to disrupt everything they had worked towards, everything that they had so meticulously planned and carried out, did not seem to fit.

Generally, when mistakes were made they were mistakes and their consequences were disastrous. When one side started making things personal they were always liable to slip up, to benefit the one they so badly wanted to hurt. It unsettled harry more than he would ever admit to know that no matter how hard he had pressed and how many buttons of Hadi Jamal he had pushed, the other man never hit back to hard. Everything was controlled. Everything was thought out and planned. Nothing went too far. Personal feelings of the heart were never allowed to control the decisions of the head. Something that Harry was privately impressed and concerned about.

Everyone had a weakness. He would be naive and blind to say that Jamal had not taken his from him. But an enemy's weakness was only of any use if you could do something with it.

They had found Lucas' Achilles Heel in Elizabeta and they had cruelly used that for all it was worth. Now the waterboarding that they would surely twist into their own sadistic mould to increase its effectiveness. He hoped for the younger man's sake that they got them out before it came to that.

But like Tariq, he was still not entirely sure that they would get them out.

"I agree." He told him, curtly, "But we go ahead nevertheless. This could be our only chance and whatever the catch, however high the price and however tight the strings, we must take it, for the alternative is far worse..."

"I know. I just think we're going to end up with the alternative we don't want on top of whatever this costs us." Tariq replied, quietly,

"I hadn't expected you to take this outlook. You found them. You must have known we would go and get them?"

"Yes...And at the time...I don't know, it doesn't feel wrong now, it just doesn't feel right."

"Harry." Ros' voice interrupted their deep conversation with the usual sledgehammer's tact, "We're going."

"You're sure?"

"Too late now."

She and Sofia clamped their hands over their ears trying, and failing, to keep their footing as the ground was rocked by a violent tremor and the wall to their left imploded.

Drawing their guns they both edged around the wall and burst into the courtyard, expecting to recover Ruth and Lucas whilst meeting CO-19 who would come in from the opposite end, trapping their prey like a rat in a trap.

As the dust cleared, they both stared at each other. Their ears still ringing from the explosion, the only thing that either of them were aware of was Harry's voice, the faint hint of desperation and even fear present as he demanded,

"Do you have them? Are they alright? Ros? Do you have her?"

A/N: As always thanks for reading and reviewing, I am very grateful for your feedback!


	18. If These Walls Could Talk

**Chapter 18**

If These Walls Could Talk

The black cord had been slipped over his eyes, blinding him to everything. The clawing fabric biting into his skin the only difference and the only thing anchoring him to reality.

The flashbacks were already beginning. The fine stream of sounds and images were being to trickle in, to stalk warily through his mind. Fleeting whispers of the past breaking through into reality like a ghost weaving through the headstones of a graveyard.

He could no longer tell the difference between past and reality as terror blurred the line between them. The thick, hard board beneath his back could have been in a Syrian controlled hovel outside London but his head was telling him that it could just as easily have been a prison in Russia.

He could already feel his breathing becoming erratic and shaky, the violent tremors that shook him fast becoming convulsions that rippled through his body, aggravating the straps that had been tied over his wrists and ankles. The bonds pinned him in place in such a manner that meant that he could only cause more damage to himself as his instincts begged for air.

His heart hammered as every muscle contracted. Adrenaline was being delivered to them in his bloodstream that pulsed to quickly through his veins; his heart being forced to fling itself desperately against his ribcage in order to maintain it.

He could feel his throat closing in on itself already; knowing as well as he did what was coming. He began to become lightheaded and choked, his body's cure for protection worse than the curse it needed protected from. Pointless prayers flew, unbidden, from his lips as the thin cloth was placed over his mouth and nose.

He waited. Waited for the water to fall. Waited for the nightmare to begin. Waited for the cold, cruel laughter to fill his ears, broken only by the calculating questions that issued from between the thin lips along with the faint cloud of cigarette smoke that would linger in the air between them.

Silence. Emptiness. Nothing.

Still waited. Every muscle tensed, waiting for _something _anything. They were playing games with him, toying with him, waiting to see how long it would take for him to break.

At this rate, not long. Something had to give.

Something did. The air around him exploded. His lungs were filled with thick smoke, quiet unlike the gentle fumes that had issued from her lips, as heat and debris filled the courtyard. He still had no idea what was going on. Where Ruth was, if she was alright, where _he _was and what the Hell they planned to do with them now.

He braced himself, for what he didn't know, drowning or having a dagger slipped between his ribs but what happened had not been something he could ever have prepared for.

He felt someone's gentle fingers scrabbling frantically at the ropes that bound him, removing them. A tender hand was placed on his chest as his saviour undid the bindings at his wrists while soft footsteps disappeared into the oblivion behind them. His blindfold was removed and he was allowed to sit up, shaking his head, trying to clear it. He was barely given the time to breathe when someone's soft lips were pressed briefly to his.

"Ros?" he choked, voice cracked

"Well who did you expect?" she demanded, lightly, a strange emotion flickering behind her usually cold eyes, "Snow White?"

"You'll do." He told her, dismissively, the smooth effect ruined by a sudden, violent coughing fit.

She pulled him into a rough hug and the held each other in silence for a few seconds before she hastily pushed him away at the sound of footsteps returning to them.

Sofia stepped back into the courtyard and glanced at Ros. As their eyes met she knew the question on her lips without her having to open them and she in turn knew the answer to it before she shook her head, sadly.

"What?" Lucas demanded, "Where's Ruth? What happened?"

"We don't have to do this now." Ros replied, coolly, standing to her feet and pulling him to his, turning to leave the courtyard the way they had entered it.

"Yes. We do." Lucas told her harshly, grabbing her wrist and pulling her roughly back round to face him. She snarled and wrenched free from his grasp but stopped and considered him, glancing at Sofia who gave nothing away but a non-committal shrug.

"Fine." She said, bluntly, "What do you want to know?"

"Everything."

"You're going to have to be more specific Lucas." She snapped, "I'm not going to sit here and discuss life the universe and 'everything' with you."

"Where's Ruth?"

"Not here."

"No-one is here. Where is she?"

"We don't know." Sofia broke in, "We expected everyone to be here. She's not, we can't stay."

"We have to-"

"We can't." She snapped, harshly, "There's no-one here Lucas. I've checked, and we can't stay. You're barely standing as is."

"I-"

"That's an order." Ros snapped, "You're welcome to stay if you wish but we've been told to go."

He glanced, fleetingly back into the depths of the building in front of them before resigning himself to the facts, they could not stay and go back for someone who was not there to stay for.

"Tell me what happened." He murmured, reluctantly resigning himself to the truth, "How did you find us? What happened here?" he said, hoarsely as they helped to support him out of the courtyard and towards a car.

"We were fed videos of what they were doing to you and Ruth here." Ros began in a flat voice, "Tariq managed to trace them to this place. It was a mental asylum almost twenty years ago that was closed down after complaints and forgotten about. It's been rather ironically reinvented by our Syrian friends. We found blueprints that showed us several weaknesses in the foundations; we then just needed a reason to exploit them."

"What did they give you?" Lucas asked as they paused to clamber into the car.

"They started playing games." Ros said with a faint smirk at his stupidity, "He got too cocky, started giving us information he didn't have to in order to manipulate us. He told us what they were going to do to you next, sent us a message-"

"How does one drown in the desert?" he said, quietly. She raised a curious eyebrow and he murmured, "They slipped a similar note under our door last night. I'm glad it helped one of us."

"It helped us a lot." Sofia said, taking over from Ros, "From that information we knew that they would have to take you outside, we presumed both of you. The only place in the facility that would accommodate that kind of group of people was the courtyard..."

"As Harry so cheerfully pointed out, we couldn't just drop in and politely ask for you back without getting anything else for the taxpayer's money." Ros said flatly, "We needed to get you and Ruth and close down the entire group if we wanted to be able to survive the political fallout. We guessed that most of them would be in the courtyard watching. If that was the case they would be easier to pick off if they were all concentrated in a large, open area. It would have been a bloodbath if we had tried to go through the building."

"You put pressure on the cracks in the foundations in order to trap them all in the courtyard..." Lucas murmured, remembering the explosion shortly before Ros and Sofia had descended upon him. Putting two and two together, he arrived at their plan.

"That was the idea. Place remote devices under the ground beneath the building, apply pressure in the right places and it would leave them stranded in the courtyard like rats in a trap. We had CO-19 covering the inside in case it didn't work and to pick off stragglers. We came in through the wall on the other side where they would least be expecting it, we had officers coming in behind us...Turned out we didn't need them."

"What went wrong?" he asked, massaging his temples as he attempted to piece together what they were telling him.

"There were no rats in our trap..." Ros murmured, "When we came in the courtyard was empty."

"Seems like you have more questions than answers..."

"You don't know the half of it..." Sofia murmured, "Welcome to the world we've been living in for the past three days." She told him bitterly, "They've been one step ahead of us the entire time."

"Begs the question of why."

"If we had the answer to that, we wouldn't have a problem."

"But we don't and we do." He murmured, softly, thinking, "Sounds to me as though we have an information leak."

"Maybe, maybe not."

"We generally work worst case scenario." He pointed out,

"This isn't generally." Ros pointed out bluntly,

"No, it's not, because this time it's someone we care about in trouble."

"That's not the point Lucas." Ros snapped, irritably, "We had more things to consider than playing the lone ranger and storming in here to get you and Ruth."

"You shouldn't have come at all then..." he murmured, his voice becoming softer as hers became harsher.

"Well you're very welcome." She spat, "Do tell, why shouldn't we have bothered and why will I not next time."

"Because now they have no reason not to hurt her."

"This was the only chance we had Lucas. We had to take it. We couldn't leave you there. Either of you."

"It was too much of a chance to take. If there is someone leaking information to the Syrians-"

"If there is then we need to be delicate about it. For the same reason we have to sweat blood and tears for this to be possible in the first place and for the same reason we had to leave without her. Ruth isn't the only one who's heads on the block." Ros shot back, "The entire service has been on shaky ground since the Albany scandal. We've been placed under a microscope and they are not going to stop until they find something to get us with or until they have no choice. We aren't at that point yet and the latter is looking less and less likely the farther we get into this operation. They will take any excuse they can get to destroy this section. And handing them a mole on a silver platter along with the option to discreetly feed it to the press and release the news of a 'deadly corrupt service' that is crippling this country and they'll take it with both hands. We're walking a tightrope balanced on a razor's edge. Move too quickly, the razor cuts the line, don't move carefully and we fall. There are very few options open to us now Lucas and none of them are particularly beneficial to Ruth."

"Does Harry know what's happened?" he asked, quietly, deciding to let the matter lie for the time being.

"No." Ros replied, bluntly,

"Who wants to call him..." Sofia grimaced,

"I've been tortured enough." Lucas replied with a flicker of black humour.

...

Harry was quietly pacing around the outside of his office. He had been doing this continually for over an hour now, muttering to himself occasionally. Tariq, who had been watching him, like a goldfish in a bowl, would have been more concerned if they didn't have other issues.

Harry being a few teacups shy of a full set would have to wait as they were still a few officers short. He would start questioning the other man's sanity when they had Ruth and Lucas back. He had a feeling that one was directly proportional to the other.

He had become so used to the rhythmic circles Harry had been pounding into the floor of his office that it took him a second to notice that he had stopped. When he did and when he realised what the reason for this was, he jumped to his feet and hurried to the door.

"Ros?" Harry said, answering the phone to his section chief and wondering if he wanted to know what she had to tell him.

"Harry."

Judging by that tone, probably not,

"What happened?" he asked, shortly,

"We got Lucas," his heart lifted momentarily, "But not Ruth."

"Why not?" he snapped,

"They're not joined at the hip-"

"Evidently,"

"All of our rats had fled the trap before we tripped it."

"Always one step ahead...And I'm beginning to think more than one, " he paused before saying, softly, "Why leave Lucas and take Ruth?", more thinking aloud than expecting an answer but she offered him one anyway,

"They were setting a little trap of their own. Lucas was their bait, their distraction that allowed them to escape us."

"Something their doing altogether too often." He snarled, "I need you all back on The Grid, Lucas too if he can stand up on his own, if he can't bring him all the same and I'll find him a chair and some coffee. When will you be here?"

"Twenty minutes, twenty five depending on how many traffic wardens I can't get away with squashing on the way."

"Alright, I'll see you then." With that he hung up, thinking,

"What happened? Did they get them?" Tariq asked, anxiously from the door,

"No. They got Lucas, Ruth and the others were gone."

Taking the hint that Harry was not looking for caffeine therapy at this moment in time. After opening and closing his mouth several times, Tariq left, slinking from the office and back to his own, sliding down one of the cool walls as he too considered the implications of this.

They had Lucas. They had Lucas but they didn't have her. They had left her, had abandoned her to those monsters. Without Lucas to use instead, God only knew what they would do to her now. How had this happened? How had they let this happen? How had _he _let this happen? Wasn't she more important to him than his career, than any of their careers, than this entire service? What lengths would he have been willing to go for her? Would take a bullet for her. Would sell his soul to the devil and promise the Gods a life time of servitude for her. And yet. He still could not save her. He could not do any of those things because that would have involved telling everyone how he felt about her. That would have involved telling _her _how he felt about her. That would involve doing the one thing he could not bring himself to do, not again. Making himself vulnerable...

"Harry Pearce!" The loud voice rippled through the solemn quiet on The Grid and drew all eyes to its owner.

"Oh how wonderful..." Harry muttered as he noticed the irate man striding towards him.

"Home Secretary, venturing a little closer to the Thames than I would have expected." He murmured, an oblique reference to their last encounter that did nothing to improve the other's mood.

"What the Hell are you playing at Harry?" he demanded,

"I'm not entirely sure what you mean Home Secretary." He said, with mocking politeness,

"Don't bullshit me Harry!" he snarled, "You've had officers running up and down the country all guns blazing, carrying out some harebrained scheme in order to have _you _reunited with Miss Evershed."

"Excuse me?" if he had been threatening to chop the other man into little pieces and feed him to the Thames before this he was nothing short of _planning_ it now.

"This service exists to protect the people of this country, _not _so you can re-enact your own modern day Rome and Juliet."

"I am well aware of what the purpose of this service is having been in it for a little longer than I care to remember."

"Spare me the history lesson Harry. Your actions on behalf of this service in the past may have been admirable and enchanting but the issue I'm having is that they're in 'the past'. What's done is done and I'm afraid neither I nor the papers give a toss when it comes down to it."

"'Spend a lifetime building a reputation to have it torn down by an ignorant little prick who has no idea what he's doing in an instant'...Something like that anyway-"

"_Don't _start playing cute with me Harry, you've done it this time, and it's both of our heads on the block."

"I'm sure that would reassure the officers that have been imprisoned and tortured recently to know."

"What the Hell were you thinking?" he hissed, "After everything you did for her with Albany-"

"Albany was a calculated risk whereby I lost nothing and gained everything."

"Lost nothing? Materially? No. Politically? You damned near ruined yourself and this service. Everything is about perception Harry and at the minute I perceive _this _to be one Hell of a mess."

"Well then you need to change your perspective."

"I'm telling you how the papers, how the _world _is going to see this Harry. To all intents and purposes, you conducted a rouge operation to retrieve one of your 'officers' because she's a little more than an officer to you and there's no point in denying it Harry."

"I _am_ denying it. That was, in no way, the purpose of this operation. We raided that building because we had intelligence of a very credible terrorist threat directed at, and operating, within this country because you decided to start playing 'battleships' without consulting or even informing us. We therefore took whatever methods we saw fit to deal with that."

"And what exactly did you get from this little 'raid'?" he asked, scathingly,

"We retrieved one of our officers-"

"Oh wonderful, so my only consolation for the _disaster _of this operation is watching you walk down the aisle and run off into the sunset with your Juliet."

"Most unfortunately Home Secretary, you won't get even that. It would never have worked between us, said officer is far too hairy for my tastes." He replied in a mockingly conspiratorial tone.

While the Home Secretary blustered, Harry noticed Ros Sofia and said 'hairy officer' making their way towards his office and cut short the other man's childish tirade,

"As _enchanting _as this little chat has been. I now have to debrief my officer and see if I can salvage anything from this mess you've helped to create. So, I am now going to ask you, if you could be so kind, to please, fuck off and let me do my job."

A/N: Thank you all for reading and reviewing. And I do apologise for my potential overuse of the cliff-hanger, although in my defence, it is Spooks and I'll promise not to leave you hanging for long :) Hope you're enjoying so far.


	19. Bunny In The Headlights

**Chapter 19**

Bunny in the Headlights

"Fuck off?" Sofia said, her tone caught between mocking reproach and amusement. "A little out of character isn't it?"

"Sometimes we need to be someone other than who we are in order to make ourselves feel better..."

"And sonetimes arrogant, obnoxious little pricks like the Hom Secretary just need to get what's coming to them..." Sofia pointed out.

"Quite"Harry agreed delicately, "And thanks to his bloody interference we are now right back where we started, with nothing." Harry fumed, "Lucas, how are you?" he asked, his tone softening as the younger man quietly entered the office,

"Been better." he smirked, swaying slightly where he stood, "But overall I can't complain."

"I'm sorry Lucas, I can't let you go, not right this second at least, we need all hands on deck."

"No Harry it's alright I understand. Besides, it's nothing a few cups of some decent coffee won't solve." To be honest he was glad, the idea of leaving Ruth, wherever Ruth was, alone while he climbed to walls of his apartment did not appeal to him in the slightest.

"That being said, if you can't cope please mention it and don't just keel over on me." Ros told him sternly,

"Careful Ros, people are going to start thinking that you care."

She snorted at this and replied, deadpan, "Frankly, you're not worth the paperwork..."

He smirked at this before saying, "So what do we know now?"

"We know that the ship in Syria is ours and that we knew about it. When I say 'we' I do of course mean the bunch of self-important buffoons who somehow came to be in charge of running this country. We also strongly suspect American involvement." he growled,

"Why does that not surprise me?" Lucas sighed,

"Indeed, America takes over the world one civil war at a time..." Harry snarled before adding sharply, "And on that subject, could someone please get the delightful Miss James on the phone and ask for her exceptional liaison skills to be directed here as soon as is convenient for her majesty?"

"With pleasure." Sofia replied with a vindictive grin, disappearing for round two with the infuriating CIA contact.

"I want answers and I want answers now." Harry told them, forcefully, "I am tired of being one step behind them and for whatever reason, I'm not in the mood to cover the ineptitude of the politicians in this country on this operation at the minute. We bring in whoever knows about this and squeeze them until the pips squeak."

...

"Miss James, how nice of you to join us properly." Harry told her, stalking around the outskirts of the table forcing her to turn around in her seat in order to keep him in view.

"Well of course, anything for you and your charming people Harry." she sneered, her eyes narrowing as she stared daggers across the table at Sofia.

"Interesting you should mention our people Miss James. Two of my officers have been imprisoned and tortured, one is still in the hands of a Syrian terrorist group who are on the verge of levelling very real and present threats towards this country and for some reason, something is telling me that I have one of your 'charming people' to thank for that."

"What are you insinuating Harry?" she demanded indignantly,

"We know about your man in Syria and we think that he may not be entirely yours..."

"Be careful what you say next Harry. If you take this somewhere we'll both regret there's no going back. Don't start making empty threats that could have damned serious consequences because you're grasping at straws and getting stupid as you get desperate."

"We're not getting stupid or desperate though you seem to have began life naturally as both." Sofia shot back across the table, her hatred of the other woman growing with every breath she drew, "They're not empty threats we know. We found records of your officer and his role to play in all of this. So I suggest you stop acting dumb and start thinking smart because believe me it's better for everyone if you do the talking from here on in."

"I think you're bluffing." she said, coldly,

"I think you wish I was but know I'm not." Sofia replied in a deadly whisper, "I think you already know where our information on this matter came from so unless you want me to be forced to continue rummaging through the skeletons in that closet, some of which may not be possible to keep quiet, I suggest you start filling in the blanks."

"I suggest you do as she says." Harry told her threateningly, "They'll be looking for an excuse to throw you to the wolves after this..."

"Alright, we have an office stationed in Syria, at the port of Latakia. He had been there for three months attempting to get intel on the movements of Syrian forces, both the rebels and the President's supporters, see where sympathies lay."

"Of course he was, because you can't just let anything lie."

"There's a lot of potential and animosity tied up in Syria, this war is a chance to turn the tables of both sides and begin the dawning of a new era."

"And a chance to line your pockets while you're at it I suppose." Ros replied coolly, "Don't stop now."

"Then our governments struck a deal. Yours would allow us to use the ship they were testing in the area to deliver supplies to the rebels operating at the port in exchange for a stake in whatever deal we brokered with the new Syrian government should the rebels be successful. Our officer was then perfectly placed to get information on the activities and unrest going on in Syria, find out if anything traced back to us. Everything was going fine up until about a week ago..."

"What happened?"

"He heard tell of a group within the Shabiha operating in London and becoming suspicious about the ship docked in Latakia. Curious and ballsy enough to do something about it."

"And he decided what a wonderful opportunity to line his own pockets?" Harry snapped,

"What? No!" she snapped, sharply, "I know him, I personally trained for him and I would vouch for him. You have my word, he is not a traitor."

"Yes and that's worth a great deal to us at the minute." Sofia snapped, "It's just one lie wrapped in a little bit of truth and coated with another lie and another truth over and over again until who's to know who's lying and who's telling the truth..."

"I am not lying and he is not a traitor."

"Spare me." Sofia snapped, disparagingly, "It's the only thing that makes any sense. Connect the dots in this sordid affair and they paint a pretty picture of your man."

"This is ridiculous-" she began, heatedly,

"No it's not. She's right, it's the only scenario in which everything fits." Harry told her, smoothly taking over from Sofia, "It soon occurred to us that they could ask for the ship's codes all they liked but unless they had someone on board to actually make use of them they were worse than useless. That's when we started considering some other alternatives and that is how we found out about your sordid little intervention in Syria."

"Harry I don't know what the Hell you've been smoking but you are way off base here." she snarled, "We don't have an officer on that ship-"

"No, and you're not going to have one here for much longer if you don't stop lying to us." Sofia snarled, "We found the records, details that showed him taking on an identity and leaving on that ship months ago."

"That ship sailed from Britain?" she said, eyes narrowed as though sure they were trying to deceive her,

"Well as it is a British ship-"

"Then it's impossible for our guy to be on it, he hasn't left Syria in six months-"

"Don't start-"

"No I'll tell you what not to do; start pointing fingers at things you don't understand." she snarled, "I am telling you that our officer has not left Syria, we only made our deal with them two weeks ago, that ship set sail months ago so I hate to disappoint you and your little conspiracy theories, as I'm not Mystic Meg, it's not possible for us to have placed him on there on the off-chance that he sailed into a war-torn country we just happened to develop a stake in." she said, speaking quickly now, her voice low and urgent, "I told you, we only decided to use him there to exploit the situation in Syria in case the threat became geared towards the US as well but I assure you, he is not on board that ship."

"Really? Then explain this." Sofia said, thrusting the file of the inserted crew member towards her, sure that she was still hiding something, "Luke Evans, he's got your fingerprints all over him."

They watched as the colour completely drained from Carla James' face before she slapped Sofia around the face without warning,

"What the Hell was that for?" she snarled, also jumping to her feet as Ros and Lucas restrained the incensed CIA liaison as she breathed, looking utterly mad,

"You think that's funny you bitch? I swear to God you'll regret-"

"Regret what?" Sofia demanded, beginning to see where this was going, the only reason she had not leapt on the other woman, "I didn't put him on that ship."

"No-one did, he isn't on it." she shot back, pulling herself free of Lucas and Ros' grip, they cautiously left her alone, watching her closely,

"How can you be so sure."

"Because he's dead." she retorted, catching them all off guard,

"You're sure?" Ros asked, watching her mistrustfully, still on her feet,

"Considering he died in my arms of lung cancer three years ago, yes I'm fucking sure."

"Who was he?" Sofia asked, softly,

"My husband." she replied in a strangled voice, "David James..."

They were all distracted by this rather sudden turn of events by Tariq who flushed crimson as the 'Star Wars' theme tune issued from his pocket.

"Sorry." he muttered, before his embarrassment rapidly evaporated, "It's them." he exclaimed, leaping to his feet and fetching a laptop from the next room,

"'Them'?" Sofia repeated, confused as he re-entered the room,

"The ones who had Lucas and who still had Ruth 'them'." he replied, catching their attention, "I set it up so my laptop would text me the next time they uploaded something."

He opened the video link while they waited for the text file to be decrypted,

"She's alive..." Harry breathed,

The video showed Ruth at the bottom of something resembling a well, a thin, cylindrical stone tube with her limp figure curled, limply, at the bottom. Unconscious but definitely alive.

Not for long...

Came the reply, superimposed along the bottom of the screen in response to Harry's words.

Sickened, Tariq opened the word file to find the most recent efforts of their poetic terrorist,

Little bunny lost in a deep dark well

In twelve hours she'll be freed from her Hell

For you will give me what I wish

Ere she drowns in the black abyss

Or must she die for the greater good?

Romeo's Juliet wishes he would

Leave my codes where the sun has set

In the space between where first and last you met

Vyeta's last breath .Ruth's prayer not

In the thoughts of those who already forgot

Never to love and never to lose

Get going now and quickly choose...

...

Her eyelids flickered as her senses slowly came back to her, feeling as though she was coming round from anaesthetic, threatening to reveal the cold, cruel world she had been enveloped in and consumed by these past few days.

He had always protected her from it before, always kept it at arm's length, thinking that she was too fragile, too delicate to live in it, too afraid to lose her to it as he had done with how many others? He had been right...

It was strange now that she thought about it, to be so caught up in the life she left, to be taken into the country's heart and have all of its dirty little secrets laid bare before her and still manage to live a sheltered life, to not know everything, to still have a little naivety, a little innocence left to her. That she could live in naivety fully aware of its existence, but never a part of it, not completely, only ever allowing herself to dip into it behind one-way glass, watching but never watched.

That had all changed now. She had been thrust in at the deep end, the only think that had stopped her from drowning before was now gone, taken away from her to God knows where, leaving her nothing to hold on to, floating in a black abyss beyond the reach of those who would move Heaven and Earth and still be unable to find her in Hell.

She allowed consciousness to wash over her without allowing herself to become fully conscious of her surroundings, whatever they were, she did not want to see them, did not want to have to accept the reality of what had now become her life...Ignorance was indeed, bliss...

She shivered and pulled her knees closer up to her chest, trembling with cold and trying not to, burying her hands into the armpits of the thick cotton jumper he had given her and that she was now infinitely grateful for, pulling it tightly around her as she did so, withdrawing like a turtle into its shell.

She pulled herself closer to the harsh, freezing, stone wall behind her, hoping to seek some comfort from it. She had never fully appreciated what it meant to be in solitary confinement, never understood what kind of effect it had on a person, and have not appreciated the company and solace he had provided in this Hell.

She jumped as a drop of icy water landed between her eyes and caused her to open them involuntarily, becoming suddenly aware of the cold pool that was forming beneath her.

Muffling a sharp scream of horror and alarm in her woollen sleeve she staggered to her feet, shocked, the thick soles of her boots splashing in the half-inch of water that had formed beneath them.

Someone that would ordinarily have caused her some irritation and discomfort now, in her shock and confusion, caused terror to flare in her chest as her heart began to flutter rapidly like that of a dying bird as she realised this was far from ordinary. Waking up where she had done these past few days would have been bad enough but now she wished she could return to the cold, clinical, white-walled cell now that she discovered she was trapped at the bottom of something that resembled a deep, square well. The walls behind her rose in sharp, unyielding sheets of cold stone to a small opening above her, the thin tube was only about four feet wide but stretched up for what seemed like miles above her, though in reality was only around fifteen feet, its seemingly endless ascent halted by a thick iron gate that was protected by thick chains, locked together by a combination padlock that loomed down upon her with an almost mocking air of awful finality.

She looked around her in desperation, the insistent water had already risen to her ankles as she pounded on the thick walls, panic giving way to hysteria and accomplishing nothing but scraped fists and bruised knuckles, sliding down the wall in despair.

From her position curled on the floor she noticed that, just over her head, a slim piece of paper had been taped precariously to the sheer stone wall, she tore it down, her eyes reading the words that sickened her and made her wish she could throw them away as she did the paper they were written on,

Water, water everywhere and far too much to drink. "

Your friends trade codes or what do you think,

The greater good

They always do

So I'd say your goodbyes before you sink.

She knew that the twisted poem was right; she knew what they would do because she knew what they would do in her position. As a spook, it was an unspoken clause in the job description that you would give everything to this job, up to and including your life, both physically and emotionally.

How many times had she seen it? How many of them had she watched forced through Traitor's Gate? Wasn't this job and all the 'necessary evils' the reason she believed that a man she had worked with for three years, had trusted, had cared about, would have attempted to kill her because of what had broken inside him because of this job. And how many of their funerals had attended in how little time? Had she really been so naive as to think that her desk or his protection would have stopped them attending hers one day? Everyone was chewed up and spat out by the machine that was MI-5 and if that was all you got then you were lucky, but no-one left with what they started, they all lost something...

They all went in to this job on a timer; knowing that they had an expiry date, that they were disposable, that when it came down to the choice between an enforced self-sacrifice of the most extreme kind, against the 'greater good' that the greater good would always be chosen. A democracy to the bitter end.

And what did they receive, what did they expect for working with bombs on their brains and devil's on their backs?Nothing. No medals, no red-carpets and black-tie award ceremonies, no fame and no fortune, no-one would ever remember your name and your sacrifice because no-one would ever know that you existed...

Without ever giving it permission to do so, she found her body shaking violently and slumped back against the frozen wall as she collapsed, screaming in frustration and fear, hands going to her mouth, her tears adding to the swelling pool around her as she broke down.

She knew, she knew that had her worst fear had come true, down here, very alone...They would not pick her at the cost of thousands of innocent lives, both here and abroad, not to mention the international chaos...She would not pick her, and he could not pick her, not now...She was going to die. She was going to die down here alone and in the dark. She was going to die in pain and terror because no-one cared enough to save her and she had almost six hours to come to terms with that. To come to terms with the things that she hadn't and now couldn't say, with the people she loved and would now never see and the ones she loved who would now never know, she would not be able to tell them because, in just under six hours...She would be dead.

A/N: Thanks for reading, please review if you have a minute :)


	20. You May Only Watch

**Chapter 20**

You May Only Watch

Carla James stalked around the perimeter of the room, running her fingers through her thick, black hair, the fury still blazing behind her intense green eyes as she attempted to calm herself down and rationally analyse the situation that now presented itself to them.

Like it or not; they were all wrapped up in this cosy stick of dynamite together.

As her own mind worked, trying to consider what they actually know, what they could accurately guess, what they were completely wrong about, how much she told them and the implications of each of these; she was utterly oblivious to the horror that was the only thing consuming the minds of the five people around her.

She gradually began to notice however, that the same expression of mingled terror, fury and disgust etched on the features was reflected and amplified between them. She considered herself a good judge of character and had a knack for accurately reading people and what she read now told her that this was not over, not by any stretch of the imagination.

She found it curious how five people who worked so closely together and who were all clearly feeling the same things, expressed them in such different ways.

The youngest member of their group and technological sci-fi expert, Tariq was simply staring at the laptop screen as though he had never seen one before, something she found ironic considering. His hands had curled into small fists at odds with the usual open spiders that danced across the keys. His eyes, usually flicking from one spot on the screen to the next were fixed in horror, staring, transfixed at whatever it was they were all seeing. The look stretched across his face told her that he was strongly considering either throwing the laptop at someone or throwing up all over it. Fortunately, he did neither.

Her eyes then moved to the taller officer who had just joined them. If he had looked like Hell before she thought, it was nothing to what he looked like now. She was fairly sure that he was one of the officers that had been taken and presumably tortured by the extremist group that had been tormenting them for the last few days. He had been pale and drawn to begin with, his intense blue eyes haunted but with something close to fatigue in them as well, as though it had been something he had come to expect and accept that was worse than anything else in his appearance.

Now however, he looked nothing short of recently having risen from the dead. The eyes that had before had at least some light, however faint, were now hollow, empty and dead. He had been the one I had been struggling to read the most, the 'enigma' of the group. But however well he concealed it behind the cold mask of professionalism and indifference, she could tell that he was as distraught as any of his colleagues over whatever news they had just been given.

Then there was the hacker bitch who had irritatingly proven herself to be bloody intelligent and almost unbelievably intuitive. Brilliant yet insufferable, the eternal plague of genius. She too looked horror struck. This made her believe that whatever it was had to be serious if it rattled the cage of that cold cow. The woman could have strolled into any casino in Vegas and cleared the poker tables with ease. About the only thing the dead void she had become was good for.

Then there was their section chief, the calculating, remorseless, ruthless Ms Myers who commanded respect without effort. Unlike her empty colleague, it was clear to see that the empty, hollow exterior she presented was just that, an exterior. It did not reflect her internal thoughts; it was designed to conceal them. Her co-worker on the other hand, the illusion of empty, unfeeling nothing that she portrayed was anything but. With her what you saw was what was going on. Myers on the other hand, while coming across as just as cold and emotionally numb, clearly had something to stir beneath the surface. Expertly hidden but there nevertheless. She too looked concerned and horrified by whatever the twisted terrorist group had done now.

Finally her eyes rested on their head of section Harry Pearce. He was standing a little away from his team in one corner of the room. Whereas most of his team members were sitting with mask like expressions on their faces, their very attempt to conceal their distress the thing that gave it away, he was making no effort to hide his emotions from his team and anyone else who cared enough to know.

He had one hand hovering above his temples the other gripping the back of a chair with an intensity that made it appear as though the skin on his knuckles would split from the force he was exerting on them. There was something different in his reaction to this. Something that made her suspect that Ruth Evershed, if this was indeed the source of their horror, meant more to him than just a colleague. She also sensed that this was something glaringly obvious to the other seven billion people in the world but not the only two who actually mattered. There was more than loss of a person echoed in his features and bearing, it was the loss of potential; of what that person could have been to him and now never would.

Wanting to know now what had caused the quiet destruction of an elite security service section in a few seconds, I moved, delicately around the room to stand behind them. None of them stopped me and I knew why.

As she stared down at the video the large black words emblazoned over the top of it, burning into her retinas as clearly as the traumatic images below,

_YOU MAY ONLY WATCH..._

"They've played you from the beginning." She said, bitterly, being the first to be able to tear her eyes from the screen as she shook her head, genuinely feeling for the poor woman who could now measure her life in hours.

"Thank you for that insight." Sofia snarled through gritted teeth.

"It shouldn't have been an insight." She snapped back, "You should have known. There's no way we would have smuggled one of our guys onto your ship, they've falsified the records. They have someone on that ship which means that your little country is in about as much shit as your officer."

Truth be told she was still shaken by seeing her dead husband's name splashed across MI-5 and have them think that he was a dead man and she regretted her harsh words later. However, in the grim situation of life and death they found themselves in she did not have the time or the patience for delicacy.

"Listen up 'Little Miss Tact' unless you've got anything useful to add to this, I suggest you remove yourself before something _unfortunate _happens to you." Sofia said with barely controlled fury, "Need I remind you that you allowed a terrorist organisation to hack in to your records and obtain allegedly classified records of deceased officers and allowed them to splashed all over everywhere, the ever Snow White CIA should potentially the dirty laundry she has in the closet before she starts routing through others."

"Do you have anything to add?" Ros asked, privately agreeing with Sofia on this one.

"I can give you more details about our man and Syria and try and access any information he may have gathered about your group in Syria."

"Please do." Harry said, speaking for the first time since Ruth's predicament was revealed.

James began to speak, telling them about the initial operation that had sent their officer to Syria in the first place. She had only been speaking for a few minutes when Ros gently brushed Lucas on the arm and breathed,

"A word?"

He rose at once without questioning her and the two of them quietly slipped from the room, a simple glance towards Harry from Ros enough to placate him.

"What's up?" he asked, quietly as she led him into an empty room that had served briefly as a storage cupboard that had been hollowed out leaving it cold and draughty.

"You're leaking." She told him, her lips twitching into a faint smirk as she motioned for him to take his shirt off.

"Little risky isn't it Ros?" he murmured, slipping it off nonetheless, "People might get the wrong impression."

"What? That it may be beneficial for me to actively try and _prevent _my officers from bleeding to death?" she asked, adjusting the bandages over the deep gashes on his back.

"That you care." He whispered in her ear, pulling her a little closer than was necessary,

"Well maybe I do..." she breathed back with a quick glance in his direction, allowing their eyes to catch for a fleeting moment, the ghost of a smile on her lips, "I did tell you...I hate paperwork."

He smiled slightly at this, the two of them needing this little moment to themselves, safely wrapped up in each other away from reality to allow them to deal with it when they inevitably had to return.

"So, I gather I can count on you for a short summary, what's been going on since I've been trapped at Casa de Terrorist?" he asked, wincing slightly as she tightened the strips of fabric around his injuries.

"Let's see." She sighed, taking a deep breath, "In a nutshell?"

"Does it come any other way with you?"

"We know what was done to you and Ruth at 'Casa de Terrorist' since they so kindly provided us with a holiday compilation video of all of the best bits...We've been able to find out relatively little ourselves since up to this point every man and his dog seems intent on hiding things that it _may _have been of benefit for us to know. It turns out the _charming _Home Secretary was involved in brokering a deal with the American's. They would help out in Syria and give us a share in whatever they got if the government they're backing comes in to power. We would lend them our latest little remote controlled toy ship for them to supply Syria 'in disguise' which was about as effective as Harry dressing up in drag at the weekend and trying to convince us he had a sister called Harriet..."

Snorting and attempting to get this image out of his head Lucas asked, "What about our delightful captor who was about as easy to read as classical Greek. What do you know about him?"

"Hadi Jamal." Ros replied stiffly, "He has some _issues _with the security services in this country."

"I noticed..." Lucas replied, flinching again as she caught one of the more sensitive areas of his back.

"Sorry." She murmured before continuing, "Long story short, a rouge MI-6 asset lost his wife on Syria and decided to take revenge on a delegation here in London. We had a choice, save the dozen or so hostages and lose their attacker, or sacrifice them in exchange for the attacker's vital information on a dirty bomb in London. Jamal's daughter was caught up in the crossfire."

"And let me guess, he's been sitting on his throne of anguish ever since and quietly plotting his cunning revenge?"

"That's about the size of it."

"_Wonderful..._" he murmured, "He will kill her..." he murmured, softly, "If we can't find her-"

"We will."

"I'm not so sure it's going to be as simple as that." He said, shaking his head, "James is right he's been playing us from the start. All of our information has been drip fed to us in little bits and I think he's still winding up to the final blow. We were always the distraction, get your attention but never intended to take centre stage."

"I don't know Lucas. You're right though, he's pulling the strings here but that's his greatest strength and his greatest weakness. He now _has _to make the next move or this won't go anywhere. God rest his soul when he crosses Harry's path..."

"Speaking of Harry...How is he holding up?"

"About as well as can be expected..."

"What did any of us really expect?"

"Well for once his blind stupidity when it comes to his bloody shadow has actually served him well. Most unfortunately I think he's now been hit by the freight train of what this could mean for the little Shakespearian romance that seems to be rapidly dissolving into a tragedy..."

"You've been keeping an eye on him?"

"Of course." She replied, dismissively, "And he on me..."

"Does he know?"

"He can't. But you know Harry; a strong suspicion is as good as gospel where he's concerned..."

"What would you like to do about it?"

"Nothing." She replied, bluntly, making him smile, "Except get out of this cupboard before people _do _get the wrong impression."

He grinned and agreed and they both slipped back out into the welcoming arms of reality. Misery it seemed, did indeed love company and the instant they stepped back out into the heart of it that seemed to have taken up permanent residence on The Grid recently.

"Everything alright?" Harry asked, his eyes flicking shrewdly between the two of them as they re-entered the meeting room, finding only the remains of Section D, Carla James having been banished to Harry's office, partly for her own protection if the look on Sofia's face was anything to judge by.

"Fine." Ros replied, smoothly, taking her seat again as Lucas leaned against the wall a little behind her, "What did Madam CIA have to contribute?"

"Other than an ego the size of Portland and a healthy dose of sarcasm?" Sofia interjected, "Not a lot. Their officer's been attempting to discover who they're man in Syria was, something they've been at for three months and we figured out in about as many minutes."

"Diplomatically put as ever Sofia." Ros murmured, calmly,

"You want subtlety with me? Find a sledgehammer." She replied

"Right, well, sledgehammers and CIA agents aside." Harry broke in, rather thinking that he did not want this to descend into something whereby Sofia started using them both in the same sentence, "What do we do next?"

He was greeted by a stony wall of silence from his inspiring officers,

"Oh don't all jump in at once." He snapped, setting off pacing around the outskirts of the table, something they had all been waiting for him to do.

"What_ can_ we do?" Sofia pointed out, "Jamal's engineered this beautifully. He holds all of the cards; we need to wait for him to make the next move."

Ironically, Jamal chose this moment to do just that.

They all stared as the little mobile phone that Tariq had plugged in to the laptop to keep it charged and together, began to ring. Connecting it up to the speaker in the centre of the table so they could all enjoy the fruits of Jamal's conversation, he then pressed answer,

"Mr Pearce, pleasure."

The silky, honeyed voice oozed from the speaker causing involuntary shivers to run up all of their spines but particularly Lucas who paled at the sound of it and more appropriately the rather too fresh history he associated with it.

"I assure you it's all mine." Harry replied in a tone that left them all in no doubt that the only pleasure he would get from an encounter with Jamal was if the other was in significant pain, a feeling that was shared around the table at that moment.

"I'm sure." He replied, smugly, "I find this conversation rather ironic considering our last."

"Oh really?" Harry said, the edge to his voice implying that he couldn't care less how the other man 'found' anything.

"Indeed, here was you, telling me about the impossible decisions that led to the death of one of my loved ones and now, here we are lightly discussing the ones that you are going to have to be making in the near future with regard to one of your loved ones. Tell me Mr. Pearce, tell me, how does that feel?"

"It feels fucking fantastic, what do you want?" Sofia spat, already in a foul mood something Jamal's oily riddles were not helping with.

He chuckled sickeningly at this before saying, smoothly, "Having a bad day are we Miss Fletcher?"

"It's getting worse by the second." She replied flatly,

"Dear me, are we all feeling a little down at the minute?" he asked in a self-satisfied manner that made them all gag internally.

"What do you want Jamal?" Harry asked sharply, hands clenching into fists as he spoke.

The only thing that had kept him from cutting the connection long ago was the thought that Jamal might have some information linking to Ruth to supply them with though even that was not becoming much of a motivator for keeping the insufferable bastard on the line.

"I'm afraid I don't have anything to impart about your dear lost colleague." He began, silkily, "She's getting about much help from me as she is from you at the moment, most unfortunately for her. No, what I have to offer is of a rather larger concern..."

"You have two minutes to spit out whatever it is you want to tell us before I leave you talking to an empty phone. From then on you can blow up the Houses of Parliament for all the attention I'll pay to your demands." Harry told him shortly,

"Very well Mr Pearce, very well...I must say I never had 'impatience' down on the list of your traits but still. It has come to my attention that either you can't or you simply won't sacrifice your principles for your people and are more than happy to sail them down the river of nightmares if it means you can keep a hold of your precious information. I'm upping the stakes Mr Pearce and for that you and I need to meet."

"You've had your chance at friendly danders in the park, if you want to give me information then give it to me." He snapped back in response,

"No, no, no Mr Pearce. You see, I, unlike you, _am _in the position to bargain, you lost the power to negotiate when you lost your officers. Meet me in Hyde Park at three o'clock this afternoon or God help you when the consequences trace back to you, which I assure you they will." He paused for a moment before adding in an almost jovial tone, "Oh, and bring Lucas with you, I miss his cheery face and the fresh air would do him good I'm sure..."

A/N: Thanks for reading/reviewing!


	21. Behind Enemy Eyes

**Chapter 21**

Behind Enemy Eyes

"No offence, but why does he want Lucas?" Sofia murmured, unable to tear her eyes from the speaker in the centre of the table.

"Because he's a twisted bastard and he's enjoying playing with us." Ros replied, stiffly,

She could feel Lucas' placating hand gently resting between her shoulder blades, their bodies concealing the contact.

"It's alright, I'll go." He murmured, softly,

"It's not alright." Ros snapped, "I'm beginning to think that neither of you should go."

"What choice do we have?" Lucas protested,

"Exactly my point. We've been playing his game, his rules from the start and I for one am sick of coming when I'm called like an obedient puppy."

"If he really does have information for us-"Lucas began, thinking of Ruth, alone, underground and trapped. He believed that she would be able to convince herself, at least initially, that they were trying to find her. He at least wanted to make an effort on that part.

"Then he could have told us over the phone." She shot back, thinking more of the members that she did have and did not want to lose. She was fairly sure that even if they kept up their end of the bargain, Jamal was using it as an excuse to gloat and for no other purpose.

"I agree with you both." Harry broke in, preventing the outbreak of a major argument before anyone else became involved, "However I think it is time we did something about this." He said, grimly, "If we must walk into a trap in order to set our own I would say that's a risk I'm willing to take."

"You want to take Jamal?" Ros breathed, "He'll suspect this Harry. He won't be walking into this blind."

"No, and neither will we." He said, firmly, "But we will be walking into it."

"Are you sure this is a good idea? What can we possibly hope to gain from this?"

"An invaluable asset." Harry replied, incredulously, "And not only for this operation but for many to come. If the actions of this group in response to an as yet unknown deal by our government, I think it is a predictor of things to come between Syria and this country. Frankly I would rather not walk into _that _blind."

"I agree." She said, "And as I know you changing your mind on this is about as likely Fidget running for Prime Minister, I want it on the record that this is a bad idea." Ros told him bluntly,

"Your concern is noted Rosalind but this is a gambol we have to take. We can't just keep waiting for him to roll the dice our way, sometimes we have to step up and do a little rolling ourselves."

"Right." She said, grimly, "Sofia, call CO-19, have them handpick a team. If we're doing this, we're doing it right." Ros said, accepting the inevitable and taking command of her team.

"Done." Sofia replied, leaving the meeting room and returning to her desk to make the call.

"Tariq, I want bugs. I want them wired and I want them to be able to talk to us at all times regardless of any stunts Jamal may pull am I clear?"

"Yes boss." Tariq replied, standing up and darting off to his little den within The Grid where all of his pet technology was lovingly stored until called upon.

Harry nodded curtly to Ros and retreated to his office leaving her and Lucas alone in the meeting room.

"Not normal for you to be so cautious." He told her, lightly, balancing on the edge of the desk.

"Not normal for you to be running back into the arms of a known terrorist who just happens to have tortured you." She shot back, harshly,

"That's not fair Ros." He told her, softly, "Harry's right, regardless of what Jamal tells us or has planned for us, we're not going to get an opportunity like this again, we have to take it."

"Really?" she said, scathingly, "Because from what I can see he's been handing out golden opportunities on silver platters like there's no tomorrow." She retorted, "There's a catch Lucas, I'm sure of it." She told him, softly, "Everything he's done has been too well thought out. He's like a cat playing with a mouse, he lets it go so far, let's it think it's safe and then it reels it back in. He's let us go, he's now reeling us back in and I want to know _why._"

"I know how you feel." He murmured, "He's clever, calculating. He weighs every decision, every word. He might be doing this partly for personal reasons but there's no emotion to him. Completely cold, all reason, all rationale. I agree that there's something waiting for us, but whether it's a nuclear bomb or a sniper, he's going to be there as well. His overconfidence and his inability to resist pushing us that little but further, tightening the strings that little bit more and seeing how long he can draw out this game forces him to expose himself and leave himself vulnerable in order to do so. If you want to tickle the sleeping dragon, you have to be willing to get burnt and he is more than willing."

"I know all of the reasons and justifications behind it and I find myself agreeing with most of them. The only thing I don't agree with is not knowing exactly what he plans on doing next..." she murmured, "It all just seems a little too easy..."

"We don't have a choice Ros. We have to do something."

"And therein lies the rub. We're doing something for the sake of doing something, regardless of the costs and consequences..."

She made to leave at this point. His hands closed gently around her wrist, holding her in place for a second before she pulled herself free, cutting the connection between them and returning to The Grid with her usual no-nonsense Iron Maiden mask firmly back in place.

Whatever her doubts and misgivings a decision had been made and she would now follow it through until the bitter end.

People came and went on The Grid as the time inched ever towards their meet with Jamal. Almost all of them wandered in and out oblivious, lost in their own blissfully ignorant worlds where their most pressing concern was what they would eat for dinner that night. _Her _main concern was how many members of her team would make it to dinner that night.

Carla James had long since waltzed off of The Grid to rejoin the snow white CIA improving Sofia's mood greatly by the time she spat,

"There's something about this that feels off to me."

"What is it?" Tariq asked sympathetically as he was passing, rapidly regretting his good deed,

"Luke Evans' file, the one that the group used to cover up their own person being on-board."

"Why?" he asked, cautiously, not wanting to invoke the sensitive CIA-wrath that still clung to her despite James' departure.

"I'm not sure..." she said, scanning its contents, frustrated, as though hoping the splinter in her side would suddenly leap off the page at her, "How the Hell did they even pull this off anyway?" she asked, her frustration taking her off on a tangent, "I think this group is rather more invested in Britain than any of us really want to know..."

"Tariq!" Harry's below rang out across The Grid causing both of them to jump.

Tariq pulled a face at Sofia before darting off towards the clarion call of Harry.

Tariq dished out the bugs and wires with several variations that would hopefully be undetectable as Harry and Lucas prepared to leave, explaining their many properties at around a hundred miles an hour.

As Harry bent to double check something with Sofia, Ros pulled Lucas aside. She pulled him into a rough, brief hug before turning on him, fiercely,

"Don't die." She told him, with her usual affectionate bluntness,

"I'll try my very best." He told her with a small smile, knowing that she was more worried than she would ever let either of them know,

"No you won't 'do your best' you just won't, that's an order North." She told him shortly, eyes flashing.

"Yes boss." He replied, gently, his eyes finding hers and holding them with ease.

Without another word they both returned to reality, the shutters coming down as they went their separate ways, Ros to her desk and Tariq, Lucas to the pods with Harry as they prepared to leave.

They had been in the car for around ten minutes when Harry tuned to Lucas and said,

"Why would he want you here Lucas?"

"Because he can have me." He replied with a sigh, "It doesn't really boil down to what I can bring to this meeting it's what my appearance will mean to him. I've had the pleasure of meeting more than a few people like Hadi Jamal in my time. They all want the same thing, power, control the usual. He's spent the last few days torturing me, complete control. Then you come in, pull me out, he loses it. He wants it back. This is the best way for him to do it. Power, manipulation, it's the only language these people understand."

"Well Mr. Jamal will be learning very shortly that we can do a little bit of that ourselves..." Harry replied, grimly, "You think this is all just about control, about asserting authority?"

"I don't know...That's definitely a part of it. He knows full well that he could have asked us to run naked past Buckingham Palace and we wouldn't have had much of a choice. He has all of the cards and he's holding them close to his chest. All we could do, all we _can _do is wait for him to play them and then see where we go from there."

"It's just one giant poker game..." Harry growled,

"Yes, and we have no idea what's in his hand but because of the chips he's throwing down we need to play it like he's got a Hell of a draw."

"What did you make of him?" Harry asked quietly,

He wanted to get a better feel for the man and knowing that Lucas would be the one to go to. The years he had spent in Russia, his survival there often depending on how well he could read people had made the younger spook rather perceptive.

Lucas took a deep breath and considered this quietly for a few moments before saying, "Sometimes, with people like Jamal it's often more about what they don't say or give away that's the most telling."

"Well the oily bastard hasn't given _anything _away..." Harry retorted grimly,

"Exactly, that's my point. He spends his life manipulating vulnerable people, extracting their secrets and laying their lives bare before them. It's not something that people generally enjoy or know how to accept. Having someone pry into the deepest darkest areas of your being, not even have them tell you what kind of person you are but forcing you to tell yourself. It's not something that can be forgotten so easily. It's not something most people can deal with. It can never make you and only ever break you. Jamal's seen that a little too often and he'll do anything to avoid having the same thing done to himself. But because of how hard he hides it, it's obvious to see what he's trying to keep hidden, even if you can't find it."

Harry looked at him carefully, weighing his words, his expression caught between curiosity and something stranger like caution.

"What?" Lucas asked in response to the older man's scrutiny,

"Sometimes the way you talk it sounds as though you could be three hundred years old." He told him causing the younger man to smile sadly

"There are parts of my life that have felt that long..." he murmured darkly before adding in a slightly lighter tone, "This car journey for example."

"I wouldn't have thought you would have been willing this journey to reach its destination so quickly."

"It doesn't really matter to me Harry..." he said, softly, "If I spent my entire life running from people who had hurt me or who reminded me of hurt, I would be a hermit. I won't forget what they've done and I won't forgive them but I will no longer allow them to dictate to me what gets done. If being in Russia teaches you anything it's that the things here we take as freedom are luxuries, in Russia having the freedom to draw breath when you choose is enough. The things you can control, you do, the things you can't you deal with; it's as simple as that."

Harry nodded at this and they spent the rest of the journey in pensive silence before clambering out and being embraced by the fresh, brisk afternoon in Hyde Park.

They both stood quietly in a tense silence beneath the large oak tree Ros had positioned herself beneath when they had last met Jamal, both of them becoming more irritable and more anxious as the minutes trickled by.

"Mr. Pearce, I had hoped you would come but I couldn't be entirely sure." The fruity, unctuous voice that made both of them want to hit something floated towards their ears. As they both turned simultaneously to its source it added, "And how could I forget the charming Mr. North, long time, no see."

"Oh I agree it's been too long." Lucas replied with the faintest hint of sarcasm colouring his words.

Jamal smiled, sickeningly, and said, "I must confess gentlemen, I had expected better."

"I don't really give a damn. What do you want Jamal?" Harry demanded,

He wanted to get whatever Jamal had come for and then go before he ended up doing something he may or may not regret depending on the outcome to the slimy bastard.

"Well before we begin I want to give you a little piece of friendly advice." He replied pleasantly, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

"Well perhaps you should allow me to give you a friendly suggestion as to what you can do with it before you waste your breath." Harry retorted, seconds from pulling the plug on this and allowing him to stew in a cell overnight before he could stomach him the next morning.

He chuckled, "I think you may want to hear what I have to say before you start making any _rash _decisions Mr Pearce." He replied, smoothly,

Harry was about to tell him _explicitly_ what kind of 'rash decisions' he would be making concerning his future when he felt Lucas' hand on his sleeve. A faint glance between them was enough for Harry to notice what Lucas was already painfully aware of.

Jamal's thin fingers were curled around a small phone; there was a video playing silently between the flesh bars of his fingers. _Ruth. _

"And my advice to you Mr Pearce is this: Be very careful how you play with me during our little conversation. You are balanced on a tightrope at the moment and if you do anything to upset me well I'm afraid the consequences could be rather _unpleasant_."

Harry did not think he had met a more insufferable _arsehole _in recent years and the only thing that was currently preventing him from wrapping his hands around the other man's throat and throttling him, quite apart from his concern over Ruth, was the thought of what he would miss out on doing to this man if he killed him too quickly now...

"I knew you would come here with the view to taking me and leaving me to vegetate in a cell before you started your interrogations. Frankly Mr. Pearce I would usually have accommodated this and I promise you shall have your chance to detain me but I'm afraid I'm a little too busy for that at the moment." He paused here and glanced towards Lucas before continuing to address Harry, "So, let me make myself _perfectly _clear. The lovely man I have videoing your officer at the moment also has a gun. You do anything to harm me in any way, he'll kill her. You take me in any way I won't be able to pass on a previously arranged code to prevent him from doing something rash and he'll kill her. You attempt to have me followed, he kills her. You attempt to place a wire or a bug on me, he kills her. Am I making myself quite clear here gentlemen?"

"Crystal. Now that we've had your friendly piece of advice, what was it that you wanted in the first place?" Lucas asked smoothly as Harry's eyes bulged from their sockets.

"To give you a warning." He replied, silkily, "Something that you my friend are rather a good advert for taking me seriously..."

"What are you talking about?"

"Well as it seems to me, I haven't had much success in torturing your officers Mr. Pearce; clearly they are just not valuable enough to you. So what if I told you that I was going to do the same thing to strangers?"

"You want to what?" Harry snarled, quite sure he had misheard,

"I _want _those codes Mr Pearce, _very _badly...And since you've made it clear that preventing the pain and suffering of your people isn't good enough of a motive, what about the preventing the pain and suffering of this country's people? I intend to take a select group of this country's finest citizens and ensure that the world knows _exactly _what you are refusing to do and the consequences of their actions..."

"You can't be serious..." Lucas whispered, hollowly, unable to imagine the effect this would have on the country if Jamal wasn't toying with them.

"Deadly Mr. North. As you should know better than most." He replied smoothly, "You have until eleven o'clock tomorrow morning to get me what I need or I will bring the people of this country to their knees and you with them." He told them in honeyed tones before turning on his heel and striding calmly from the park.

"Harry. Do we take him or not?" Ros asked through gritted teeth, feeling that she would comfortably hang the consequences for the look on his bloody smug face.

"No." Harry replied, shortly, "We can't risk the consequences, either to Ruth and now the people of this country..."

"You think he's genuine?" Ros asked, shocked,

"I think it's a distinct possibility..."

"What now?"

"We wait, we watch and we find a way to stop the bastard before the torture of Britain's civilians ends up on YouTube..."

A/N: Thanks for reading/reviewing, very grateful for all of your comments so far. Don't be shy!


	22. Occam's Razor

**Chapter 22**

Occam's Razor

"What's happened?" Sofia asked, registering the slightly ashen tinge to Ros' face that concerned her more than someone placing a nuclear bomb in the middle of The Grid.

Sofia had left Ros and Tariq monitoring Harry and Lucas' progress, never having become accustomed to the idea of following them wherever they went and listening to their every word, preferring to lock herself away until things were decided one way or the other.

She had buried herself among the archives deciding to attempt to find _something _to work with on this case. For some irritating, psychotic Syrian reason, intelligence gathering on this operation from books and written sources had been rather thin on the ground.

From the looks of it however, it had been both a good idea and a bad one to lock herself amongst the dusty shelves. It seemed for the sake of her sanity to have been the best choice, but for her insatiable curiosity it seemed as though her sanity was damned either way.

"Jamal has made another _request._" Ros replied tightly through gritted teeth,

"For God's sake, when did we become a bloody radio station?" she snapped in return, throwing the thick stack of paper's she had picked out onto her desk, causing the coffee cup still perched on it to shake alarmingly. She growled at it, daring it to fall over before she spat,

"So what the Hell does he want this time? The blood of a hundred virgins or merely our first born children?"

"Neither." She replied in a tone that implied they would be preferable to what he _did _want.

"What?" Sofia asked, genuinely concerned now,

"Unless we give him the codes by eleven o'clock tomorrow morning, he's going to take several British citizens hostage, and posted images of their torture online."

"Excuse me?" she breathed, horrified by this, "Fucking _bastard_, we should have killed the arsehole when we had the chance." She said, violently,

"Yes, thank you for that Miss Fletcher, _who _exactly are we cursing into oblivion?" the Home Secretary asked as he waltzed onto The Grid,

"How did you get in here?" Sofia demanded, rounding on him,

"There is a door in the corner, if you're having trouble with it, I'll be happy to remind you of its presence and function on my way out."

"That sounds wonderful, let's go now before I forget." She replied scathingly, gesturing towards the pods.

"Before that happy moment comes I have a rather more pressing question." Ros broke in smoothly, "_Why _did you get in here Home Secretary? Wrong turn?"

"You wish Ms Myers." He simpered,

"Yes we all do." Sofia hissed under her breath,

"I want to know _what _you are doing gallivanting around on your moral, conflicted high horses on this operation. Where is Harry Pearce?"

"Out gallivanting." Ros replied, smoothly, "I can give you a call when he stops."

"No." He replied, bluntly, "You'll have to do Ms Myers. I want an update and I want one now."

"Very well." She replied, stiffly, leading him towards Harry's office with an expression on her face that would have been appropriate had someone just charged her with looking after a hyperactive three year old with leprosy.

"And _I _just want to be able to get away with murder." Sofia snarled darkly in an undertone as he flounced off after Ros.

"Insufferable git isn't he?" Tariq put in, placing his elbows on the desk and leaning over the computer screen towards her.

"Have all of the Home Secretaries over the years been as bloody intolerable as he is?" she asked,

"No. He's a special case. And he seems to have taken a particular shine to you." He replied with a smirk,

"I'm honoured." She said, grimly, "I swear that man's schizophrenic." She sighed, shaking her head, "One minute he's all sweetness and light chatting away about the Loch Ness Monster, the next he's been possessed by the ghost of Hitler."

Tariq snorted. After the time he had spent with Ros Myers he had not believed it possible to find someone who was less tactful or politically correct than she was. However he may have found someone to give her a run for her money.

"What _exactly _happened with Jamal?" she asked, quietly, leaning forwards.

Tariq was half-way through retelling the story when the pods hissed and announced the return of Harry and Lucas.

"Right." Harry began, fairly sure that the ridiculous grapevine that had taken root long ago in The Grid would have filled them all in on the latest with Jamal, "We have eighteen hours before this country is hit by one of the worst civilian hostage situations it's seen in years." He told them, deciding there was no point in dressing it up, "Where exactly is Ros?"

"With the Home Secretary."

"In my office?" he demanded, in looking affronted,

"In your office." Sofia confirmed,

"Wonderful..." Harry muttered,

"Home Secretary?" Harry asked as he strode purposefully into his office, "Is there a problem?"

"Yes. This operation you're running." He replied, hotly, "You are wasting the time and taxpayer's money of this organisation chasing up and down the country after a lost deer and it has to stop. There is no evidence to support the idea that this group is a direct threat to national security and so-"

"I'll stop you there if I may Home Secretary." Harry interrupted, flatly, "You will be _delighted _to know that this group now poses a very real threat to this country."

"In what way?"

"In the way that if we do not give in to their demands by tomorrow morning, they will post images of British citizens being tortured on the internet and hold MI-5 responsible."Harry replied matter-of-factly

"They will _what_?" he spluttered, taken aback by this revelation.

"Torture. On the internet. Probably won't reflect too well either on us or on you, Home Secretary. Although of course, if you'd prefer, we can cease to, what was it now? Waste' time and the taxpayer's money' on this operation?" he said smoothly,

"Get on with it." He snarled, storming from the office looking as though he was caught between murdering Harry and worshipping him. The result was rather unsettling.

"Right." Harry said, grimly, "Getting on with it. Tell me that in the last hour my fairy godmother has descended upon this building and decided to solve all of our Syrian problems?"

"Not quite." Sofia said, "But I've had a thought."

"God help us all..." Lucas muttered,

"Says the man who thought it would be a good idea to go on a lunch date to the park with his torturer." She scoffed reflexively before continuing smoothly, "Does all of this not seem a touch extreme?"

"They are _extremists._ Not known for swapping bunnies for kittens." Ros pointed out,

"Not the methods though, the demands." She said, quietly, "Occam's Razor, when you hear hooves, think horses not zebras. If all they really wanted was for the threat to their country in the form of an unidentified warship to be removed, which is fair enough, there are a multitude of easier alternatives than faking records of dead CIA officers, smuggling men on board a classified military operation, probably incapacitating the original crew member, kidnapping two senior MI-5 officers, torturing them and finally posing the terrifying threat to national security that they just have, all for the privilege of obtaining authorisation codes that are damn near impossible for them to get no matter the cost, not to mention then having to feed them back to their man in Syria, probably getting him killed, all to make a boat turn around and point the other way, something a fairly insistent gust of wind could achieve." She said in one breath, giving herself a little shake.

"That's a fair point." Tariq murmured as they all paused to consider this,

"There's paranoid and then there's just plain stupid and that is something I don't think any of us could accuse Hadi Jamal of being unintelligent, crafty bugger..." She said, firmly,

"No." Harry said, quietly, "You sound as though you have a theory." He said, sternly,

"A little more than that." She confessed, quietly,

"Right well, we have until eleven before our nuclear pumpkin explodes, do get on with it." Ros said, delicately,

Sofia took a long breath before beginning, "The Luke Evans file that they used as cover was bothering me. I couldn't find out exactly why, _yet_, but it did lead me to do a little digging into the person who needed his cover."

She began to fish methodically through the files on her desk, pulling out a large, fuzzy still from what looked like a CCTV camera and a file beside it for them to compare as she continued,

"I found out, after several angry phone calls, an infuriating amount of time on hold and a month's worth of patience, from the MOD that the ship had security camera's on board, 'just in case' and after several more calls and threats and favours, I was given access to them."

"And what? You found Jesus in a window reflection?" Ros said, impatiently, "Spit it out."

"The pictures look as though they were taken in 1902 from the quality of them but it was enough to give me a positive match. You'll love this, this is genius." She said, an impressed smirk stretching across her face despite herself,

"You managed to dress yourself this morning?"

"Good things come to those who wait Ros." She grinned, infuriatingly, "I got a facial match to the _original crew member_." She said, incredulously, "The man who was replaced and the man who replaced him were one in the same."

"Are you sure?" Lucas asked, shocked,

"Unless he has an identical twin that no-one's known about for thirty-seven years, yes, I'm sure." She replied, sarcastically,

"Why would they bother to do that?" Tariq asked, confused,

"It's perfect." Lucas breathed in response, "It's the last thing anyone would ever think of. Total deniability. No sane person would ever suspect it."

"Cheers Lucas." Sofia cut in, with a look of hurt on her face.

"I'm sensing there's more?" Harry said, looking expectantly at the younger officer,

"So much more." She replied with a satisfied smile. "I started looking into our shy crew member and found out rather a few interesting things about his past. To you and me, his name is Peter Jacobs but that wasn't always the case. He was given a new identity, by the British government no less."

"What?" Ros demanded, echoing the thoughts of her team at this latest nugget of information.

"I have a friend in the police force who agreed to turn a blind eye while I ah, 'flicked through' some of their files. It turns out that Mr. Jacobs used to be Mr. Kazem. He was originally from Syria, where his father hailed from, but travelled over here about twelve years ago with some friends to visit his mother amongst other less savoury activities. They got caught up in a drug trafficking ring in London with it being a case of 'wrong place wrong time'. They were offered a deal, protection and new identities in exchange for their testimony against the drug runners."

She began pulling up several files that, judging by their slightly dog-eared exterior, looked as though they had been well loved in the last twelve years.

"On the surface, the new identities were to 'protect' the witnesses from the repercussions that could follow them giving evidence against some powerful, unpleasant people. The deeper, darker reality was that they had struck a deal to erase the persona of powerful, unpleasant people from their own histories."

She laid out several graphic images on the table before them showing the death and devastation that had swept through a city in response to what was, unmistakeably to all of them, the aftermath of a bomb blast.

"It turns out that the' Brave Little Angels' who testified in court were far from it in reality. They were hard-line Syrian extremists who had gone to some incredible, bloody, lengths in their own country to make people listen to their views. The government offered them a new lease of life here because, quite frankly, what were the lives of a couple of hundred brutally massacred Syrian civilians when it came to having a go at splashing their names across the newspapers here and quashing a ruthless underground drug organisation in London." She said, a bitter edge to her voice, "They got their case-breaking testimony, and the charming little terrorists got to walk away off into the sunset."

"How could this not have shown up in a background check?" Ros breathed, horrified,

"Because technically there was no background to check." Sofia replied, "He's been squeaky clean for the past twelve years, up until this point of course, he has a new identity, the crimes of Cemal Kazem didn't follow the life of Peter Jacobs. I had to sweat blood tears and HTML to get access to those records. They were not made for human consumption..." she pointed out, quietly,

"Alright, so what do we do with this information now-"Ros began but Sofia cut her off,

"I haven't finished yet, there's one final twist in the tail that goes back to my earlier point." She said, softly,

"As if we weren't all dizzy enough already..." Lucas murmured,

"Quite." She said, "I said that Cemal Kazem was a Syrian extremist, but he was definitely not a lover of Assad's regime."

"What are you saying?" Harry murmured,

"I'm saying that it's unlikely that a man who watched his family slaughtered for printing posters calling for a change in the voting laws to suddenly become a supporter of someone like Hadi Jamal who's painted himself out to be Assad's poster boy."

"Leopard's don't change their spots..." Lucas murmured,

"No, they don't, particularly vengeful leopards with rather bloodstained spots." Sofia replied, "I don't think Jamal is entirely focused on supporting the dear Syrian President. Not if this is anything to judge by."

"You think Jamal is a rebel? Accusing Britain of supporting _himself_?" Tariq clarified, as they all attempted to wrap their head's around this.

"A wolf in a lion's clothing..." Harry muttered,

...

She closed her eyes as a violent tremor ran through her body. She was still alive. Her heart was beating. Her lungs were expanding and contracting, forcing air into them and oxygen into her bloodstream to be delivered to the muscles that were currently tensed painfully, fuelling the release of adrenaline that flowed through her veins causing her body to shake and twitch violently. She was alive. Every sense, every feeling, every thought that she possessed proved that.

And yet, she knew that she was dead.

She could feel the cold clinging to her as the water levels continued to rise. Her skin felt hot and feverish and a thin film of sweat clung to her suffocating pores. This water that was claimed by so many religions to be pure, to cleanse sins, to clean, to absolve, to _fix._ And yet here it would break her. Here it would be her undoing. Here it would destroy her.

She knew. She knew that her life was measured in hours. That it was only a matter of time before the swirling torrent around her that continued to inch its way up her body claimed her life. She knew that she could pray to any number of hidden, non-existent deities, that she could promise her soul to the devil and a lifetime of servitude to the Gods and still, still it would not make a bit of difference.

It was a cruel thing. To know one's fate. When she had been younger and her thoughts had been more fanciful, she had gone with friends to visit a fortune teller. She had thought that it would be fun, to know her destiny. To know whether or not she was meant to be swept off her feet by a handsome, rich man and honeymoon with him in Barbados. She wanted to know if she would be powerful and successful. She wanted to know if she would be happy.

It seemed so strange now, that then, when she had gone in pursuit of her future, that she had convinced that whatever she was told would make her happy. Whether it should or not. The fortune teller was a hoax, a cheat, a scam. She would take your money and promise you that you would be happy and then everyone would be. Everyone would have what they wanted. And that was enough. Even the people that did not believe for fortune cookies and horoscopes went looking for meaning in them, found and forced meaning from random, everyday occurrences that didn't actually have a thing to do with the random black text that someone in a factory in China had scrawled onto them.

Fate. Destiny. Her future. All of these things looked, as they probably always had done. To be very bleak indeed. Her life had been leading up to this point, to this moment. She had been living for today; the day she died. And what did she have to show for it?

Who would truly miss her when she was gone? Of course the people on The Grid would, Lucas and Tariq, maybe even Ros. But their hearts were already too hardened by grief and loss of so many other people like her that they could never truly feel the way she would need them to feel in order to have made a difference.

No-one and nothing in this life was contingent upon her. Nothing would feel as though its heart had been ripped out, that its entire world flipped upside down and their being scattered on the floor in front of them, none of the broken, ruined pieces her demise had caused able to create anything worth salvaging.

_Harry was..._

The small voice leapt, unbidden into her mind. Her brain doing what was only natural for the human head to do, attempt to shield the rest of her from her heart.

Yes, Harry Pearce. He had loved her, she knew that the stupid man probably still did, but he was so damn stupid that it had come to this, to nothing. Another thing of the many endeavours in her life that had ended in a similar fashion.

She had heard that it was typical for people to reflect upon their lives, on the things that they regretted doing and, more potently, the things they regretted not. And the thing she regretted now was Harry. Was not having the courage to tell him how she felt about him, for not forcing him to accept the truth that he refused to allow himself to see.

She closed her eyes. She could not think this way. She could not _allow _herself to think that way.

He was not coming for her.

He could not come for her.

And if she was honest with herself, with what she stood for, with what 'herself' entailed. She did not want him to.

A/N: A little bit of light plot thickening here because frankly I needed a chapter or so to breathe! Thanks for reading/reviewing!


	23. A Lion In Wolf's Clothing

**Chapter 23**

A Lion In Wolf's Clothing

"Harry!"

Over the last few days the sound of Tariq's voice calling that one single word had come to strike fear into the heart of the most hardened and senior MI-5 officer. Over the course of this operation it had become synonymous with 'Syrian Arseholes at work' and the tone had been tinged with a sharper and sharper edge each time the word was uttered.

Now he sounded positively suicidal as the team flocked to them. By now they had become exhausted with this pattern of events. Both because of the fact that this was becoming an almost daily occurrence and also because they lost a little portion of themselves every time it was mentioned.

Curiously, Lucas was less sick of this then the rest of them. Even as the subject of these videos, it was a strange, slightly newer experience for him. One that, unfortunately, was becoming rather too common for his tastes.

"What is it?" he asked as they all crammed themselves into the small office that had never seemed this small from the outside.

"A video, but this one hasn't been limited to our own personal server connection, though bits of it are aimed at us. This has been splashed all over the world wide web." He told them, grimly, fingers flying across the keys as he pulled up the offending video, hastily alleviating the sudden spikes in his colleague's blood pressure at these words as he added quickly, "We pulled it straight away obviously, we were lucky, it was up for less than five minutes before it was flagged but even so..."

"What exactly is _it_?" Harry asked, predicting, accurately, that the answer was going to do nothing for his current sense of wellbeing.

Tariq pulled up the window at last, deciding not to even attempt to describe it and simply allowed them to watch the damn thing for themselves.

It was not set to any music and throughout its length it did not utter a sound. Somehow this deadly hush, especially where there ought to have been sound, was worse than the horrendous audio that should have accompanied it, the horror only being intensified by the dead wall of silence that enveloped them.

The video was only around two minutes long and the horrific silent images of Ruth and Lucas' torture that were scattered through it were broken by the black screens and blank, white words that filled them, tauntingly,

_PREVIEWS OF THINGS TO COME..._

_WHO TO BLAME FOR WHAT IS DONE_

_IT LIES NOT WITH ME BUT THOSE I'VE SHOWN_

_BLAME SOMEONE A LITTLE CLOSER TO HOME..._

At the end of the video, startling all of them, were images of each member of Section D, their initials splashed mockingly across their eyes in blood red ink.

Snarling, Harry made to say _something _to his slightly shell-shocked team but was spared from doing so by Tariq's interruption, though whether this was out of mercy was debateable,

"Before we start concocting conspiracy theories there's more. Jamal's left us a targeted message on the server."

"Do I want to see this?" Harry demanded, privately feeling that the only thing he wanted to see was the bottom of a bottle of Scotch at this moment in time.

"Potentially..." Tariq replied, helpfully,

The message was fairly simple and rather innocent by comparison to some of the other vulgar abominations of the English language they had been sent over the years apart from the fact that they all felt their blood boil as Jamal's voice leapt from the blackened words on the page to taunt their eardrums in his mocking, honeyed snake's tongue.

_As you seem to be struggling a little here, I am willing to give you an extension since I realise that it would not be possible for you to find your officer in the limited amount of time I gave you and to be honest I've grown rather fond of Ruth over the quality time we've spent together. And besides, it will be much more satisfactory for me to see the destruction of both aspects of your lives in the same moment. And so, you have until eleven o'clock tomorrow morning to get me what I want or God help the various people in jeopardy in this country at the minute. Regards. J. _

Most of them looked ready to spontaneously combust at this moment in time apart from Lucas who looked a little paler than was healthy.

Harry had turned a delicate shade of beetroot by this point and was glowering at the computer screen with a hatred that would have been warranted had it personally dropped a nuclear bomb on a house containing his entire family.

"If someone doesn't think of something to do about this exceptionally soon, I may be hanging myself and my career for the pure and simple pleasure of causing this man intolerable pain before I have the pleasure of killing him."

"I might be able to spare you the noose." A voice told them from the doorway.

"Why the Hell are you here?" Sofia demanded, rounding on Carla James who had wandered into the room a little closer to the younger officer than was probably considered advisable for her general health.

"To help." She replied, quietly,

"Good God what have we done to deserve that? Murdered every man woman and child in America."

"Look." She snapped, coldly, "You can either do this with me or without me, but since the latter option has only seemed to have robbed you all of any sanity this job may have yet afforded you as necessary for civilised existence, I suggest you take the former."

"What do you have for us?" Lucas asked before anyone else could interrupt, placing a placating hand on Sofia's shoulder, silencing her.

While they had all been running around like headless chickens none of them had forgotten Ruth's predicament but they had forgotten the ridiculous timescale Jamal had given them for her survival. He had probably come to realise that he wasn't getting nearly as much enjoyment from her death if it came within the limits he had previously set, therefore appealing to his own sadistic, selfish ends as much as theirs, however, for whatever reason they now had time. Time to do _something._ Something other than argue endlessly.

Deciding to address the milder officer, James turned to him and said quietly, "I'm giving you a head's up from our man in Syria. It's not been cleared by my superiors but frankly if I had waited for those lazy bastards to get off their asses and start making some decisions we would all be floating in the Thames about now." She began, hurriedly, "I've just heard word that their man on the ship was sent back to London last night. They know his cover's been blown and they tried to pull him out, swap him with someone else in the dying minutes. It was supposed to have been done in the dead of night, last minute plans, second-hand ticket, all very hush hush but our officer got lucky. He contacted me half an hour ago, from what he said, your guy's plane will be landing here in less than an hour."

"Thank you." Lucas murmured, softly, turning back to his colleagues as Harry murmured, triumphantly,

"Find him. Bring him here. And then God protect him..."

...

Their muscles tensed as the cool female voice that seemed to issue, unnervingly, from the loudspeakers of _every _airport informed that calmly that the flight they were after had just landed and the arrivals would shortly be disembarking.

"How pissed was Lucas?" Sofia asked, as they began to scan the area for the non-existent crowds.

"Exceptionally." Ros replied, massaging her eyelids and shaking her head at the memory.

Lucas had grown steadily paler and paler as they had watched the video until Ros had began to wonder whether they had pulled him from a disused mental asylum or a mortuary.

"Sit." She told him, steering him onto the table in a disused meeting room and forcing a cup of lukewarm coffee that had grown an attractive skin across the top of it, deciding that was better than nothing.

"I'm fine." He had protested, weakly, while grimacing at the cup as though expecting Frankenstein's monster to rise from the depths if he pierced the thin film on the top.

"Bullshit." She had snapped. "That fact is not up for negotiation." She had hissed, firmly as he had stubbornly opened his mouth to protest, "You stay here, Sofia and I will go to the airport."

"Ros I-"he began, furiously, standing to his feet and wincing as the ruined, raw skin on his back protested.

"Will follow the orders of your senior officer." She had replied, bluntly, "Stay here, drink your coffee and try to remain on two feet until we get back."

She shook her head as Sofia smiled sympathetically. She knew how frustrated Lucas had been, and would be, with her for not allowing him to come. Apart from anything else, he had suffered the most of the members of The Grid they had left and she knew how much he wanted revenge on the bastards that had tortured him, for Ruth as much as himself and this country.

Still it was 'this country' that was featured in her job description and that was what she had to make operational decisions based on. Lucas would have his chance at revenge later she would see to that.

Now however, she had to concentrate on the task at hand, something Sofia decided to remind her of as she breathed in her ear,

"There."

Ros followed her eye line and spotted him.

"Do we take him here or follow him elsewhere?"

Ros consulted the Tariq in her ear on this point,

"Boss man says bring him in like we would anyone else, when it's easiest and there's the smallest chance of civilian causalities."

"Well if Jamal has his goons around here to play babysitter, the place with the smallest chance of civilian casualties is not in the middle of London's most congested airport."Sofia pointed out,

"Right so we use our new found friend as a human SatNav and follow him wherever he decides to go next." Ros replied, pleasantly, "Tariq, I want him on surveillance every second that he spends in this airport from this moment forwards, if he so much as picks his nose I want it on camera."

"Yes boss." He replied, "He's heading off the baggage collection."

"Shocking..." Ros replied, both of them having already set off in this direction.

They followed Tariq's instructions until they arrived at a hotel in London,

"The Asquith. Nice." Sofia said, appreciatively as they pulled up outside.

"Apparently being a psychotic terrorist pays better than being an MI-5 officer." Ros replied, also glancing up at the lavish hotel,

"There's certain sadness to that..." she said, softly,

"What room is he in Tariq?" Ros asked as they both clambered purposefully from the car.

"2809." Came the reply,

"Excellent." Ros replied as they strode up the pristine stairs and into the main reception area.

They both made their up to the room, their footsteps muffled by the thick, plush carpets.

"How are we going to do this?" Sofia asked as they reached the second floor and began to move down the seemingly endless, silent corridor, glancing at the numbers on the doors every now and then.

"I have an idea or two..." Ros replied, with an almost mischievous twinkle in her eye causing Sofia to smirk slightly,

"Then please, lead the way." She replied, smoothly,

They arrived outside room 2809, the large brass number emblazoned on it testifying confidently to that fact.

"You're sure Tariq?" she asked, as she raised her hand, thinking of how badly this could end if they picked up the wrong nutcase,

"Positive. I'm looking at an image of the key being placed into his hand as we speak." He told her, reassuringly,

"Right well then let's get this show on the road." She replied, knocking loudly on the door.

It was opened after a few minutes of them standing impatiently in the corridor by a younger man who had clearly been travelling all day and was wearing only a long cotton t-shirt and boxer shorts.

"Who the Hell are you?" he demanded,

"Room Service." Ros replied, sweetly being catching him deftly on the shoulder with a taser.

...

"I want to talk to him..." Lucas told Ros softly as they watched their new chess piece twitching and stewing in the interrogation room.

"Is that a good idea?" she asked, quietly,

They had not spoken about their latest altercation before they left but when she had returned with their catch he had thrust what she had taken to be a rather mocking cup of coffee into her hands. Though perhaps she was simply reading too much into it.

"I'll be gentle." He promised with a glimmer of black humour.

"I'm sure..." she said through gritted teeth.

"We need him to talk and we need him to talk now. Every minute you waste over something that should be straightforward is a minute closer to-"

"I know exactly what it is." She snapped, "Save your mind games for him." She sighed, dragging her hands through her hair.

On one hand, Lucas was the ideal choice. As a field officer he was one of the best. She put her life in his hands on a daily basis without even thinking about it. He knew that he was more than capable of getting the information from their suspect, he had proven on numerous occasions that he was good under pressure and could charm or manipulate anything from just about anyone. But there was a catch, as their always was.

Up until this point Lucas had refused to take part in most of the in-house interrogations, preferring to leave them to herself and Harry. After Russia the very thought of it left a bitter taste in his mouth and left her wondering now why he would suddenly be so keen to jump back in at the deep end and break his tradition. The answer was the cause of her concern.

"Lucas I just-"she began but she was cut off, though not by Lucas, but by Harry,

"It's alright Ros. He's in room 3 Lucas."

The younger man nodded and slipped off quietly towards the door.

Ros turned to Harry, half relieved that he had taken the decision from her hands and half seething that he had taken the decision from his hands.

"Was that wise?" she asked, pointedly as they made their way to the small box room to watch the interview,

"We're about to find out." He replied, "Lucas was one of the best we had at interviews, uncannily perceptive, master manipulator."

"Was." She pointed out forcefully, "He's been rather reluctant to demonstrate these magical superpowers since Russia."

"That doesn't mean he's lost them." Harry retorted fairly,

"_That _doesn't mean he should be using them." She shot back stubbornly,

"Have a little faith Ros." He replied quietly as they watched Lucas step into the room,

"Yes this today and what will it be tomorrow the bloody tooth fairy?" she snapped as she too turned uneasily to watch her officer at work.

Lucas walked quietly into the room and shed the thin jacket he had had draped around his shoulders and slung it casually on the handle of the door. Underneath he only wore a thin white t-shirt that displayed the menacing black tattoos that encircled his arms, evidencing his past, something he usually made the effort to hide.

"What are you doing with that MI-5 guy?" Kazem sneered, sardonically, "You trying to scare me?"

"What do you think?" Lucas asked, smoothly, taking a seat opposite him.

"I think that whatever you're trying to do it won't work." He shot back, leaning smugly into the chair.

"Well if you don't know what I'm trying to do, how will you know that it hasn't worked?" he asked innocently, raising his eyebrows.

Behind the glass Ros' lips twitched as she watched him squirm. She was impressed beyond her will. Lucas had been in the room for less than five minutes and already had more from him than the officers who had tried for a good three hours between them had.

"You can talk smart all you like. I'm not giving you jack." He told him, pointedly,

"Good, I don't want jack I want information."

"Well you can't have that either."

"Really? Why not?"

"Cause I'm not stupid. You'll take what you want from me then leave me out on the street like some rabid dog."

"Well that should suit you fairly well considering." Lucas said, quietly,

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"We've had you in our custody for several hours now, we've known about you for a Hell of a lot longer than that, which means that your friends knew as well."

"Of course they did." He said, smugly, "They're all over you lot."

Lucas suppressed a satisfied smile at this before continuing, "And how many of them with all of their power and their knowledge have come for you? How many fucks have they spared for you rotting in here? How much do they care that they've left you in here 'like some rabid dog on the street'?"

"Well how could they get me?" he said, shrugging, uncomfortably,

"If they're as 'all over us' as you say they are, they must have known about this, we've known about this for quite some time. More than enough for them to stop you from falling into our clutches..." he watched the younger man squirm uncomfortably at this before folding his arms, protectively across his chest and clamped his mouth shut, "So which is it; do they not know? Or do they not care?"

"They care!" he said, hotly, "They're all I've got, they're like my brothers, you think you can 'turn me' get me to spy on them for you!?" he snapped, irritated, getting to his feet and pounding his fists on the table.

Lucas remained completely impassive throughout his little outburst before saying quietly, "They care? Yes they care, but not about you."

"And how the Hell would you know?"

"You're here." Lucas said, simply, "I've had the pleasure of meeting your friends recently, Jamal, they knew that because of what they did to me and my friends, what we were likely to do to you, and still they left you here, let you walk right into our arms without so much as batting an eyelid."

"Well they had to..." he said, quietly, before cutting himself off and saying, defiantly "You going to torture me? It won't work."

Lucas didn't answer him directly; instead he said in a soft, venomous hiss, "Do you know what these are? What they mean?" he asked, indicating the thick black ink tracing its way up and down his arms,

"They're tattoos." He said, uncomfortably, with a look that told Lucas he knew that they were far more than that.

"Yes, they are, prison tattoos, from Russia. And they all mean something. They mean that I was held there for eight years. They mean that I was _tortured _there for eight years. They mean that I know. I'm not just some 'MI-5 Guy' who doesn't understand about pain and sacrifice, believe me, I do. I know that if a man has secrets he doesn't want to tell, secrets that he knows he can't tell then all of the torture in the world won't make him talk. I know. I've had secrets that were worth protecting, _people _that were worth protecting, something that was worth fighting for, something that was worth dying for. Do you?"

"Yes..." he said, unconvincingly,

"Do you really? Are you sure?" Lucas murmured, quietly, leaning forward, "You would go through Hell for them?"

"I've been through Hell. They pulled me out of it." He retorted, softly,

"And then they made you go straight back." Lucas pointed out, "What would you go through for them? What _should _you go through for them? They sent you off around the world in a tin can with a group of strangers you could never fit in with and they willingly sailed you right back to your Hell. You think they're the kind of people who care? Or do you think they'll happily abandon you to this Hell as happily as they abandoned you to that one because when it comes down to it, they don't give a damn about you. These people are not your brothers, you can choose your friends, you can't choose family, you're stuck with them, and they tend to make sure you're stuck for them."

"What do you know about brothers and family? The people you call that left you to rot in prison for eight years." He shot back, shakily,

"No they didn't. I didn't tell you they were my brothers. I didn't tell you they were my family. I told you they were my friends and I chose carefully because I _knew _what they were, I didn't disillusion myself with foolish lies like you have to make myself feel better because look where that would have landed me." He told him, with a quiet fierceness that shockingly left neither of them in any doubt of the truth of his words, "My family is dead, just like yours. It's time you started picking your friends."

"You think I'll choose you?" he said, shakily, in a voice that implied his faith in his 'brothers' was teetering on a knife edge.

"I think you should." Lucas told him quietly, "What would you do for them? How much agony will you put yourself through for people who _want _you to go through it because they don't give a damn about you. I could beat you endlessly for days until I had broken every bone in your body and you had more bruises than skin; then I could leave you in solitary for weeks on end until you're screaming out for someone to come and beat you just so you know that someone exists who cares enough to acknowledge your existence and the manner in which they do that doesn't really matter; I could whip the skin from your back until its red raw and you can taste blood in your mouth and tears in your eyes; I can cause you no end of agony until the day you die and you know what they'll give you in return? Nothing."

He watched the man opposite him quivering, his eyes slowly sinking into the back of his head at his words, slowly rocking backwards and forwards in his chair.

"Make a deal with me." He said, quietly,

"I can't." He replied, his voice cracking,

"You'd rather make a deal with them?"

"Better them than a deal with the Devil..." he retorted, blindly,

"Now you have to decide, what would you rather? Sell your soul to the Devil in exchange for your life, for your freedom; or spend the rest of your life enslaved by your Gods who treat you worse than the Devils you run from?"

He watched as the young man's eyes, large and brown and filled with fear, still innocent despite the slaughter and cruelty they had witnessed,

"Make a deal with me Peter..." Lucas said, quietly, watching the man's reaction to his last word and wondering whether he had made or broken this engagement with the one last sentiment and the one thing he had said without any premeditation or calculation, on impulse, on emotion.

A/N: Mammoth chapter I know but it's beginning to wind up to the end now and I need to push the plot on a little, hopefully it wasn't too much. I didn't have any time to reread this so fingers crossed nothing too ridiculous happened! Thank you all for reading and reviewing!


	24. The Man With Two Faces

**Chapter 24**

She had closed her eyes a long time ago, attempting to block out the world around her and retreat to the blank darkness that was more pleasant than her current reality. She did not know how long she had been forcibly bathed in the cold water; all she knew was that it was becoming increasingly easy to numb herself to feeling anything.

A faint sense of unease began to trace its way up her spine, trickling into her mind without her noticing right away. Something was wrong, or more accurately, not right, something had changed.

She allowed her eyes to snap open and examined her barren surroundings. The deep well was as uninspiring as it always had been and most unfortunately the change was not her fairy godmother swooping in through the grate above her.

It hit her, suddenly. After being suspended in the water for the next few moments she realised that she wasn't getting any wetter. The water levels had stopped rising.

Now she had to wonder what this meant.

Her first, foolish thought, was that someone had noticed her. Someone from the murky, unfeeling world she lived in, and had loved, where six months was ancient history, had actually managed to find some shred of human compassion within themselves and was trying to help her. Someone at The Grid had found something, had pulled some strings, had cut a deal with her captors, had bought her more time.

However, as quickly as this thought had sprung, fully-formed, into her head, it was replaced by something far less whimsical, far more logical and probably far more accurate. It was most likely that this had not been designed to ease her suffering but rather to prolong it.

She had already had firsthand experience of the sadistic natures of her captors and knew that it was far more likely that they had decided to drag out this psychological torture for as long as they could get away with. It would be a balancing act between paining her and avoiding her rescue. Something that she had already just about given up on.

She slapped her hands against the water swirling innocently at the base of her ribcage. It was cold to the touch but it burned her palms where they struck it, sending shockwaves up her arms. She could feel herself beginning to add to the drowning black pool as frustrated tears spilt from the corners of her eyes.

She wiped them away angrily, telling herself that she was being stupid. She had resigned herself to this fate long ago. She had accepted this. She had accepted her lot in life and how the lot would be withdrawn.

Lucas' words from earlier floated, unbidden into her mind,

"_I then realised the true nature of the beast we are in. I was never forgotten because I was never known; I could never be forgotten by anyone, because no-one knew that I existed. In this job, whether we shuffle off this rock at ninety with our family around us, we crawl through traitor's gate or we die heroes, we are never remembered, never rewarded, never honoured in any way. The only people who will come to our funerals are those who also do not exist, mortal ghosts in a mortal world, and a part of their world but never allowed to live in it..."_

No-one knew who she was. She could die, along and afraid in this pathetic hole in the ground while the sadistic psychopaths she had come to know and love so well over these past few days would leer at her and dance around and get off on her pain, and no-one from the real world would know or care.

The irony was that the only people who might could do nothing about it.

...

"I can't." He said, in a choked whisper,

"You can." Lucas replied quietly, watching the younger man squirm before him, knowing that one way or another, he _would_.

"Yeah? And how the Hell would you know that? You don't know what I'm capable of!" he snarled,

"No, but I, unlike you, know what deal I'm offering, I know you should take it, I know you have to take it. People generally find a way of being capable of things they have to do."

"I don't _have _to do anything." He spat, "I won't."

Sensing that they were on thin ice, Lucas changed tact and said, softly, "Why did you join Jamal and hiss group?"

"I believed in them, I agreed with what they were doing, with what they _are _doing." He said, with a faint hint of pride resonating in his tone.

"And what _are _they doing?" Lucas asked, innocently,

"What you trying to trick me into telling you cause you don't know?" he scoffed,

"I'm not tricking you in to anything Peter. I think I know what Jamal told you they were doing, I think I know what he's told you they _are _doing and I think they're both a load of bullshit."

"Hey! You don't talk about them like that!" he snapped, jumping to his feet, firing up instantly at the implications,

"No? You're the one that just stepped off a plane from Syria where you've been trapped in a tin can, cut off from civilisation for a while now. I on the other hand have the backing of the entire British secret service and the benefits of having the pleasure of Jamal's hospitality over the last few days. I _know _what he's doing, but I'm not so convinced that he's told you."

"And why would you think he wouldn't tell me?" he shot back, "He sent me out on that damned boat with those bloody stuck up pricks for months, he told me."

"But did he tell you the truth?" Lucas asked, quietly,

"Course he did." He shrugged, defensively,

"Are you sure? Because he would never lie to you, would he?" Lucas continued, continually adding more pressure little by little to cracks that had been obvious to him from the outset.

"No...He wouldn't..." he replied, his voice becoming softer and softer and less assured with every word Lucas whispered in his ear.

"Because he wouldn't have lied to you when he told you that he was going to kill the monsters that killed your family, would he?"

"He tried..."

"And he wouldn't have lied to you when he told you that he was nothing like them, that he would never sink to their level, that he wouldn't lower himself to what those animals had done."

"He wouldn't. He doesn't."

"He doesn't what?"

"Doesn't do what you think he does..."

"And what do I think he does?"

"Tortures people..." he said, quietly, knowing that the words weren't true and hating himself for saying them while he knew they were lies. Lies that he had naively swallowed.

"I know that's what he does." Lucas replied quietly, still chipping away at the fraying exterior of the young man opposite him.

He shook his head, tightly.

Lucas stood up suddenly, causing him to jump, but he did not approach him. Instead he simply peeled his shirt off, wincing and began to unwind the thin white bandages that had been bound around his torso. When he had removed them all he turned and showed him the ruined remains of his back.

"That is not torture?" he murmured, quietly. The younger man was staring, transfixed in horror at the deep gouges on his back, bright red and standing out in shocking relief against the bland, colourless room they were both in. "Playing Russian roulette with an innocent woman because she had connections to us in order to get information from us, executing her, robbing her young son of his mother, that's not torture? Placing someone at the bottom of a pit and slowly beginning to fill it with water, leaving them so they die alone and in fear, _that_ is not torture?" he continued all the while in the same soft, deadly whisper as he pulled the shirt on over the raw wounds.

"Yes!" he screamed, "Yes it's torture! OK, it's torture, I know it is..." Tears were beginning to slide uncontrollably down his cheeks. He was out of his depth and had been for some time now.

"And you agree with that?" Lucas murmured, a faint touch of shock and disbelief colouring his words but never overdone, pushing just far enough to cause the other man to collapse and this was enough to push him over the edge.

"No. No. They did that to my mother...To my sister...He swore. He swore he was different..." he wept, slamming his hands repeatedly against the corner of the table until his knuckles also began to weep, staining the cheap, plastic table a faint pinkish-red.

"You knew he wasn't though?" Lucas said, offering him the chance to redeem himself that he seized with both hands.

"I knew..." he said in a choked whisper, "But he promised he would help me find them. That we had to make sacrifices, that sometimes we had to become the Devil for a moment to see how he thought, to see how he saw the world, to understand him because otherwise we would never find him."

The faint glimmers of admiration that still lingered in his voice told Lucas that Jamal had tortured and exploited and manipulated this boy as much as he had tortured and manipulated him. He had forced a bond that reminded Lucas of Stockholm Syndrome between himself and the vulnerable, impressionable boy he had first met in Syria. He had been filled with rage and anger and fear and Jamal had seized the opportunity to add him to his collection.

It was clear that Jacobs had idolized him. The way he parroted not only his words, but his beliefs when they went against everything he knew was enough to testify to that fact. And that fact was something Lucas could now use to manipulate him again. This was why he avoided these interviews, this was why he hated this job sometimes...

"He lied to you before. About that, about something he knew was as important to you as family. Why do you think he's telling you the truth about this now?"

"Because...Because he said he wasn't lying." He replied in a broken voice, the child who had lost his family gazing from the haunted eyes.

"What did he tell you?" Lucas murmured,

"He said that the ship could be turned to our advantage, that we could spill the blood of one of our enemies with the brains of another. He told me that I had to help him. That I had to use the codes he would give me to destroy the bases at the port of Latakia. He told me that part of the group responsible for my family's death, Assad's men, had barracks and safe holds at the port. He told me that I could be a hero, that I could destroy them, that I could have my revenge."

_Jesus..._Lucas thought as he fought to keep his face impassive. Jacobs had no idea of the implications of what he had just said.

On the other side of the glass however, Ros and Harry did.

"Bloody Hell..." he murmured as she stared, frozen in horror, "I can see the headlines now, Britain's Bombs Blow Syria Sky-High." He sighed, running a hand over his face,

"It's ingenious." She breathed, "We would never be able to conclusively prove that it wasn't us. It would look as though we were making a very public declaration of support for the Syrian rebels. Not only would Jamal succeed in destroying Assad's men at the port but he would practically guarantee Britain's support, we wouldn't have had any other choice..."

Harry was about to reply when his bad day was suddenly made even worse in the form of a pale, breathless Sofia,

"Come." Was all she said and all she needed to say to strike fear into the hearts of both of her senior officers.

"What?" Harry demanded as they both spilled out onto The Grid.

Wordlessly, Sofia jabbed the button on the remote and turned on the small television in a corner,

"...It is not known exactly what is happening inside The Asquith at this moment in time. All we know for sure is that several, armed men have been seen entering the hotel and since then no-one has been allowed to leave. A hostage situation is feared-"

"Jamal." Ros said, through gritted teeth, "It's half past ten, he's preparing for his threat, we're running out of time."

"Tariq, get him on a secure line." Harry snarled in a tone that implied he was authorised to hack into every civilian phone in Britain if that was what it took and he hurried off to comply.

"And what are you going to say exactly? I'm sorry, the dog ate the authorisation codes, I need more time?" Ros demanded,

"Do you think Lucas can turn Jacobs?" he asked as Tariq presented him with a phone.

"Probably, given enough time, something we seem to be lacking at the moment." Ros replied.

She had been quietly impressed by the manipulative powers she had not suspected Lucas to possess under those circumstances and was sure that he was already lodged significantly beneath Jacobs' skin.

"Well let's hope Jamal's in a bargaining mood."

Silence descended over The Grid as Harry put the call on speaker and they all waited with baited breath to see what would happen next.

"Mr. Pearce, this is an unexpected surprise." The sleek, oily voice that issued from the phone informed them, "I take it you've seen that I am rather serious about this and you've called to offer me the codes?"

"No." Harry replied, flatly, it took all of his willpower not to hang up the phone on the smarmy bastard right now, "I need more time with the codes. Shockingly this country won't just provide me with the controls to a highly classified, advanced naval weapon because I click my fingers and tap my toes."

"Well then we seem to have reached a bit of a problem Mr. Pearce. Perhaps what I am doing will encourage them to listen to your finger clicking and foot tapping."

"Quite, in the meantime, I have something that I think you may like back."

"Oh really Mr Pearce? I'm afraid I can't imagine that-"

"A certain someone that, ironically enough, you misplaced at The Asquith. Your inside man there I believe?" Harry said, this thought just striking him, "We have him in our possession at the moment. He's proving to be of little use to us in the way of information, would you like him back?"

"What? Pumped full of radio isotopes so he glows in the dark meaning you can find our hidden dens, I think not. Frankly Mr Pearce, he's not worth the risk."

"Frankly 'Mr Jamal' it's not worth the risk for you _not _to take him back now." He said, smugly, pouncing on the other man's pig-headed mistake,

"Oh really? And how do you work that out?"

"Well just because he's been rather uncooperative thus far, that doesn't mean he can't cooperate. I'm not positive, but I rather think that a recording of someone he hero worships and who has promised him Heaven and Earth for his part in this that he's 'not worth it' will do much for your cause."

"What do you want in return?" Jamal growled, grudgingly,

"Time." Harry replied, "You push the deadline back another 24 hours." He said, firmly,

"24 hours Mr Pearce? All of my victims will have died of starvation by that point, you get twelve, and he's probably not even worth that."

"Very well, where would you like us to drop him off?" he asked, pleasantly adopting Jamal's honeyed, mocking tone.

"Oh well now I know how you love the scenery of Hyde Park. Bring him there, preferably without the lice you people favour crawling all over him."

Harry hung up at that point and turned to his team. "Now what?" Ros demanded, bluntly, subtly puncturing the satisfied balloon that had bloomed in The Grid at this.

"We hope Lucas can win us something to give back." Harry replied, tautly, "He needs to be told that we now need this situation resolved quickly, Sofia...Take him some coffee, would you?"

Sofia elbowed bluntly into the room with the coffee cups and dumped them on the table between them, "Enjoy." She said, sardonically,

"I don't want this." Jacobs protested looking at it as though expecting to see the arsenic burning through the paper cup.

"So don't drink it." She said, rolling her eyes expansively at him as she slouched from the room, slamming the door behind him.

_Turn him, wrap him up, stick a bow on him. We need to give him back in about an hour. Play him this. _

Was the note inscribed on the cardboard holder on Lucas' cup in what he recognised as Ros' writing. Along with a micro SD card.

"Peter, why did Jamal pull you out of Syria?" he asked, quietly, he had been chipping away delicately at the other man for around half an hour since his revelation, gently teasing bits of useless information from him. Now however it was time to take a sledgehammer to the jugular.

"I don't know. He told me you had found me, that it wasn't safe for me there, it was for my own protection."

"When did he tell you that?"

"I don't know, a couple of days ago." He said, quietly, "Why?"

Lucas sighed and dragged his hands through his hair, apparently thinking hard as he avoided the question,

"What?" Jacobs demanded, hotly,

"We only found out a few hours before your plane landed."

"What? But you said you knew-"

"Yes, we knew about you long before that, but we only found out you were coming back here when you were on that plane."

"But you said-"

"I know what I said, I lied." He snapped, pitching his tone and emotions to Jacobs' reactions. "Jamal lied to you as well."

"No he didn't-"

"Yes he did." Lucas replied, impatiently, "He's lied to you; he was never trying to protect you. If he was trying to do that you wouldn't be here would you? He doesn't care about you. He never did. He's played you from the beginning and it's time for you to decide what you want. What each side can give you. Who you owe and what. As far as I see it, you don't owe him anything."

"I owe him _everything._" He snapped,

"No, he promised you everything, he didn't give you anything except the mess you've ended up in today."

"He's given me more than you." He shot back

"What if I told you that I could give you what he's promised. The names of the men responsible for torturing and killing them."

"I can still get that from Jamal...You're lying, you can't get me that." He snapped, flushed and irritated now,

"Yes I can. Think. How did I know about them? Jamal didn't tell me, neither did you. I can get you that information; I _will _get you that information, _if _you'll help me."

"I can't. I can't cheat him. He, he-"

"He more than happily fed you to the wolves to service his own interests. He sent you to Syria to get what he wanted and forget about your revenge that never mattered to him. All that mattered was how much he could manipulate you, how much he could get from you and then how easily he could throw you away when you then weren't of any use to him."

Jacobs was still shaking his head in disbelief, blinded to everything that didn't come with the option to rose-tint it.

"No?" Lucas snapped, with an awful finality in his voice as he played the recording Ros had just given him on the SD card,

Harry's voice issued from it first, "Would you like him back?"

Then came Jamal's crushing reply, "What? Pumped full of radio isotopes so he glows in the dark meaning you can find our hidden dens, I think not. Frankly Mr Pearce, he's not worth the risk."

Lucas watched as this finally did it. The mask he had been chipping away at for all this time finally fell, exposing something cold and harsh and cruel beneath it. The monster he had created and they had now tamed as he said through a tight jaw,

"What do you need me to do?"

A/N: Thanks for reading/reviewing!


	25. The Demons In Front, The Devils Behind

**Chapter 25**

The Demons In Front, The Devils Behind.

"What's the worst thing that can happen to me here" Jacobs asked Lucas pointedly as Tariq fitted a wire to him.

Tariq glanced at Lucas who was standing, half in shadow in the corner of the room, who shrugged and said simply, "Jamal could know or suspect that we've turned you and could kill you."

"Well at least you told me that much without dressing it up which is more than I can say for him. Bloody Caribbean cruise my arse…" he muttered gloomily, trying and failing to speak as casually as Lucas had before him.

"It won't get that far." Lucas told him reassuringly, "We'll have your back as much as we can."

"That's what I'm worried about." He said wryly, "Who am I more concerned about? The demons in front of me or the devils that have my back?"

Lucas' lips twitched into a thin smile at this, "Welcome to my world. Where there is no right or wrong, only necessary and not, how do I know who's good and who's evil?"

"It all depends on perspective." He replied quietly, "If you're a rebel who is fighting for their freedom, for a life, then everything else must be forgotten. There are no wrong decisions or heinous crimes there is only what must be done. Think of the big picture, the greater good. If you're the system being attacked by the rebels, then they're murderers and terrorists and vile monsters who must be stopped. You're expected to play by the rules and focus on the details to destroy the big picture because you don't want anyone to see that the rules are often broken. No—one looks at a painting in exactly the same way and what they do see often depends on who shows them."

Lucas watched him quietly, understanding Harry's position when he had told him that he sometimes sounded three hundred years old when they been in the car earlier. Like it or not, Jacobs reminded him of himself. Cold and cynical, with too many years behind his young eyes and a mistrust of the system; tempered by the faintest shred of humanity that prevented him from becoming a monster like Jamal, the product of the paths his life had forced him down.

"If that was truly the case then you could argue away any action with the defence of 'the greater good'."

"Who says we don't? Everyone does." He replied softly, "You should know. I bet that's the damned motto here. What's sending one insignificant person your country views as a dangerous terrorist to his potential death without a backwards glance when that act could save thousands of lives and a lot of pain and suffering?"

"If you're getting cold feet-"Lucas began in a low growl,

"No." he interrupted quietly and sincerely, holding the other man's gaze in his own, "I know my place in this world. How much I am worth and why I'm worth it."

"Well then you know more than me." Lucas replied with a wry smile, "The day I do will be the day I can't do this job anymore…"

"What are you talking about? You have all of _this._" He said, gesturing around The Grid, "You matter, you mean something, you do something, you help people, you have the chance to die a hero, however and whenever you go."

He smiled ruefully at this, "Can you ever die a hero, when no-one will ever know that you've died?"

"I'm done." Tariq said, straightening up before Jacobs could respond to Lucas' words.

"Seriously?" Jacobs demanded, gazing down at Tariq's handiwork in horror, "I know what _could _happen here, I didn't know that you were going to do everything in your power to make sure that it _will_. Scrawling TRAITOR across my forehead would have been less obvious." He muttered, tugging at the conspicuous wire folded into his collar.

"Relax, we want it found." Lucas told him calmly, "If we had sent you back clean Jamal would know that something was wrong. He knows the rules of the game he's playing."

"So how does that help you then?" Jacobs asked, perplexed, "I thought you wanted to find him, to use me as a human SatNav?"

"We do and we will." Lucas replied with a faint smile, "Everyone who knows what they're doing will remove a wire in the same way, something we can use." He began to explain,

"When Jamal does, he'll separate it, pulling the internal wiring from the plastic sheet coating." Tariq continued, demonstrating with a second model, "When he does this, he'll dislodge a secondary tracker system that will, with any luck, adhere to either you or to himself allowing us to track him and listen in while he thinks he's safe. It should be too small for him to trace it." Tariq continued, showing him in slow motion and allowing him to examine the small, rice sized tracker that was attached to the cord.

"There are a lot of 'ifs', 'buts' and 'maybes' in there." He retorted, still looking unconvinced, despite being impressed by the technology.

"Right James Bond, if you have a better idea speak now or forever hold your peace." Lucas told him, pausing a moment before saying, "Right, come on, Harry does to appreciate or tolerate lateness, we're leaving." He said, steering him towards the pods.

The journey was almost silent, Lucas drove with Harry in front while Jacobs skulked in the back, hunched over and nervously playing with his hands, alternating between distractedly watching the scenery that flew by them as though he was on his way to the gallows and was counting down the houses, and conducting a forensic examination of his hands with such an intensity that anyone would have been convinced that he was unlikely ever to see them again.

Curiously, it was Harry who broke the silence,

"Tell me Peter, why the fascination with Hyde Park."

The younger man gave him a strained smile, glad of the distraction, before answering,

"I'm not entirely sure. He's always used it for meetings and drop-offs, he said he liked that it was open, fresh and innocent, a level playing field for both sides. It's become a sort of a tradition with him; he's almost superstitious about using it."

After this, the rest of the trip was spent in a tense, uncomfortable silence until they reached their destination.

They spilled gratefully from the claustrophobic car and out into the fresh, open air of Hyde Park.

"And for the sake of 'tradition' never again will I be able to enjoy a picnic here." Harry told Lucas in an undertone as they both watched Jacobs who was looking around anxiously, his sweating palms and dancing eyes saying that he was looking for a way out. The hopeless slump of his shoulders told them that he knew the action was pointless.

"Come on." Lucas said, gruffly, snapping him back into his horrible reality.

"Right... he said, face setting in a look of grim determination that both of the Mi-5 officers respected. Neither of them feeling that they would be as quick or eager to jump back into bed with the viper they knew Jamal to be.

They walked to a large, open expanse of grass in the middle of the park, the lake to their left. As they walked from one end, they could see Jamal casually sauntering up to them from the opposite side.

Grudgingly or not, they gave credit where it was due and, whether it was just for show or there were snipers hidden in the trees with beads on them, they both had to admit that Jamal had serious balls walking alone and unarmed towards two armed MI-5 officers who bore a hatred towards him on behalf of the entire country through the middle of an open public place where, in theory at least, anything could happen.

"Peter." Jamal said warmly, greeting him with the voice of an uncle greeting a favourite nephew and the smile of a rabid wolf, "How are you? Were you well treated?"

Jacobs shrugged and muttered, "Fine. I didn't exactly have champagne and room service but they didn't beat the shit out of me so..."

Lucas suppressed a smile, he was a natural; unrecognisable from the timid rabbit cowering in the headlights as they had approached him, now he was calm and collected, hands thrust casually into his pockets as he reacted to Jamal as though he was a scolded child being sent home from school to a disapproving parent and not as a traitor who would spend every second in his company fearing that he had sold his soul to the devils to have his life taken by this demon.

"Well gentlemen, I must admit, I was surprised to see you so willing to return Peter, and in such good condition too, barely used." He began silkily, his suspicious gaze darting between the three of them, searching for deception, resting on Peter a little longer than was necessary.

"We don't have time for him to be of any use to us." Harry replied flatly, "You know how it works in the great chess game of life. Sacrifices of smaller pieces must be made in order to bring down bigger fish."

"Quite." He replied, infuriatingly, "I'm glad we understand one another Mr. Pearce. Or at least, that we understand the world we are in and the game that we are playing."

"I'm glad we do." Harry replied tautly, his temple twitching but otherwise remaining utterly impassive to the other man's persistent jibes.

"Well, much as I enjoy your company, I came here for Peter, not a picnic, I'm a busy man as I'm sure you understand, we can exchange pleasantries later."

"We won't be exchanging anything since I don't seem to see what we're getting for holding up our end of the bargain." Lucas growled; a warning hand thrust across Jacobs' chest as he began to move towards Jamal.

"You're getting time Mr North. Something you of all people should appreciate. I can do many things, but I cannot show you time, won or lost, given or wasted, that is not within my power."

"You'll have to show us something or Peter's coming home with us." Harry shot back grimly,

Jamal sighed buy obliged, slipping his hand into the pocket of the long coat he wore, causing both of them to tense unnecessarily before he produced a smart-phone.

"It should be enough that videos of your civilians' torture are not splashed all over the internet, never mind the news." He told them, airily,

"Just because you can't see the effects of torture, does not mean that it isn't taking place." Lucas replied in a dangerous whisper, "Something I _do _appreciate."

"Indeed." He replied coolly, before hissing, "And I do know how you like to be _thorough_." He held out the phone to them and explained what they were seeing, his oily voice returning with his unshakeable composure, "Side-by-side, live shots from inside The Asquith, CCTV on the left, pictures from my people on the right."

Harry and Lucas examined the footage. It was highly unlikely that Jamal could manipulate both feeds simultaneously on a mobile device, as well as having them agree with the clocks in the room to the second, something both of them spotted almost immediately. They knew that without taking them to Tariq and having him strip them down, something they definitely did not have time for, that it would be nigh on impossible to tell for sure, however with a quick glance at the other, they both agreed that it would do.

"Speaking of my people." Jamal said conversationally when they had both indicated their satisfaction, "They're becoming rather restless. Still, they are content to wait, I've told them they'll get their chance and I keep my promises. Come eleven o'clock tomorrow morning, you will have nothing and I will have everything. Now-"

"Not quite. That's only one part of the bargain fulfilled." Harry interrupted harshly, "And you do 'keep your promises'." He added, scathingly,

"That I do Mr. Pearce. I presume that you are referring of course, to the charming Miss Evershed, now how could I forget dear Ruth?" he said, mockingly, "How could any of us forget the lovely Ruth?"

He hammered away on the screen of the phone for a few minutes before showing them a second feed. This one showed Ruth at the bottom of the well. At Jamal's command, and then at theirs, whoever was holding the camera shone a light down onto her, causing her to flinch and proving that it was live, as was she.

"Satisfied?" he asked, sweetly,

"Indeed." Harry replied, parroting Jamal's patronising tone.

He smiled and turned to Peter, "Are you coming?" he asked, eyes flashing as he weighed the other man's words and body language.

"Sure." He said, shrugging indifferently, "Long as you feed me, I'm starving."

They went their separate ways, the sides now seemingly evened up. Two and two. None of them knew whether this was the way it would be divided or whether one side had gained a distinct advantage while the other had lost their one and only invaluable lifeline in this round.

Harry and Lucas waited by the gait, Lucas leaning against the fence as they waited for Tariq and Ros to give them the feed from Jacobs' wire.

"They said that you were uncooperative..." they heard Jamal's voice murmuring to Jacobs as they walked away.

"I guess. They didn't really try too hard." He replied, "I thought I was in for it. When they picked me up I thought well this is it, this is how I'm going to die. They didn't do much. A couple of slaps, nothing much. I told them I wouldn't give them shit. They seemed to know I was telling the truth. They started muttering about 'trades' pretty quickly...What did you have to give them?"

"Something we can easily afford. Time. More time to watch them dance and squeal and chase their tails." He replied with satisfaction. Jacobs had successfully deflected any suspicion of Jamal's by giving him the opportunity to gloat, appealing to his egotistical nature with beautiful subtlety,

"You must be so proud Lucas." Ros smirked, though he could tell that she was impressed beyond her will, as was he.

"The padawan has become the master." Tariq added before returning back to the job at hand, seemingly being able to picture a little too accurately Harry's expression, "How long to we keep this up for?"

"Until the wolf returns to his den and invites us with him." Harry replied grimly,

"When do we pull Jacobs out?"

"We don't."

"I told him we had his back." Lucas said, a faint hint of accusation in his voice,

"We will Right up until the point he doesn't have it anymore." Harry replied harshly,

"You told me-"

"What you needed to hear." Harry replied,

"Because you knew I wouldn't have agreed to talk him into it if I'd known that you were sending him in to this blind. A little too similarly to the way you sent me to Moscow because we both know how that ended." He spat, turning his back on the other man,

"He has killed hundreds of innocent people Lucas and wouldn't hesitate to do the same again if you had twisted his arm in a different way." Harry retorted, "I didn't have time for you to start wrestling with your morals and your empathy for terrorists on this one." He snapped, harshly,

Setting his jaw, Lucas turned from the other man, hoping that Jacobs' natural ability continued to flourish under pressure.

"If you were so uncooperative Peter...Why are you wired?" he hissed, the unmistakeable sound of a gun being cocked reaching all of them and causing Lucas to flinch.

"They said they'd kill me if I didn't wear it, said they couldn't trust me otherwise. They said you knew the game, that you wouldn't expect me with no strings attached...Did you?"

"No." He replied, a faint smile evident in his voice at the younger man's answer, something that was reflected in the listeners as they realised that Jacobs _wanted_ to trust him, "And strings can be cut."

They all waited with bated breath as static filled their eyes and they waited to see if Tariq's idea would work.

"Now, tell me, what happened?" Jamal's voice said as the little moving dot showed that their tracker had stuck and that they were being led to the wolf's den at last.

They waited, watched, and followed as Jamal quizzed Jacobs as they drove. Jacobs held his nerve and stood up to Jamal's inquisition that Lucas described as 'Russia without the jail cell' and did not allow any cracks that must be there to show.

"Are you ready?" Ros asked Lucas as they waited outside the dirty grey building that Jamal and Jacobs had disappeared in to with a SWAT team.

They waited. Unable to hear anything but shouted warnings and the scrambling of desperate people.

Jamal sat calmly in the centre of the room, leaning back in his chair as the room dissolved in to chaos around him. The world ending around him as he walked through the clouds of ash into the arms of the enemy, recognising that it was the only place to go.

As he was pulled from the room, and Harry was allowed to confront him before he was dragged away,

"Take him into a room. Have him wait for me. No-one goes near him until I've spoken with him."

...

Harry entered the room quietly, and alone.

The sound of the thick, steel door slamming behind them echoed around the room as they both became aware what it signified, that it was sealing them in the dense, dark room, closing off all exists, leaving them quite alone and quiet unprotected from the other.

Stripped bare of the defences they possessed in the real world. Their teams and the threats of dangers that may or may not have been lurking in the shadows. Now that it came down to it, this was all it was ever going to come to. The clash of wills and wits on a level playing field where it was impossible to tell you would win and lose and what that would be.

"You're in a bit of an interesting and complex position here Mr. Jamal."

"I am indeed." He said, quietly, "My solution to it however, while no doubt interesting, is not in itself that complex. Its implications perhaps, but not it in itself."

"Oh really. And you're solution is?"

"I have already decided exactly what I am going to tell you. No amount or bribery or torture or other unsavoury acts will make me change my mind. I have decided to give you what you have earned. And you _have _earned something. It is clear that here you were the better player. You played me beautifully. Peter. A valuable player and a piece that I now perceive to be bigger than either of us understood, whatever use you have now put him to. You have earned something."

"I assure you, I am waiting _on tenterhooks _to see what I've won." Harry replied, voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Here's the thing Mr. Pearce. It's your job to make impossible decisions. And not only do you have to make these terrible choices, but you have to live with the consequences of them. So live with this, I will give you what you want, but I will only give you _one _of them. You must now decide which one it will be. Do you spare the people in this country from a horrific fate worse than death that history will echo back at you until you enter your grave; or do you send one of your officers there now, doomed to die a mindless, seemingly pointless death where history will never even know she existed?" he leant back smoothly in the chair with the look of the utmost satisfaction on his face as Harry blanched before hissing, taking the final chance to twist the knife he had sunk between the other man's shoulder blades, "What's it to be then, your life? Or the one thing that makes it worth living?"

A/N: Apologies for the slight gap, bit of a hectic weekend and this chapter didn't come as easily as I had expected! Thanks for reading! Review if you can.


	26. Heads I Win, Tails You Lose

**Chapter 26**

"It's really rather simple Mr. Pearce." Jamal told him smoothly when his latest words were greeted with nothing but a dead silence from the man opposite him, "If you choose Ruth, I give you her location and the combination for the lock, she lives to fight another day, while countless innocent civilians endure unimaginable pain and suffering before their unfortunate and inevitable, rather public deaths. If on the other hand, you opt to leave poor Ruth to her fate, then I will make a simple phone call here and now, the hostages shall be released and Ruth will be just one of countless, nameless and faceless MI-5 agents who have paid the ultimate price in the name of Queen and country."

"And you want _what _in return for this exactly?" Harry demanded through gritted teeth, deciding that he would cross said bridge when they had to come to it.

"I've told you, nothing. Well practically nothing, all I ask is that you don't kill me, and I think you're too busy dreaming up some sadistic, medieval punishment for me. So effectively, you get this free of charge. I acknowledge that in this particular game I was beaten by the better players, I accept that. Besides, I have no real use for either of them anymore. We both know that this isn't going to go anywhere now. I have only what I have created left to me, nothing more, nothing less. Just because I don't get what I started out looking for does not mean I can't still get what I want."

"And this is what you want, is it?"

"MI-5 has much to answer for Mr. Pearce. It is enough. However, I would ask, as a gesture of good faith, that you remove that unsightly ship from our port, bad things on board meeting with bad people there is unlikely to result in a happy outcome." He replied with a cruel smile, "But whatever happens and whichever way you look at it, I get what I want. Heads I win, tails you lose."

Harry glared at him, jaw tightening as he processed Jamal's words. Leaning back in his chair his studied him and asked, quietly,

"And if I decide not to play anymore games with you and leave you to stew in here until I can find somewhere vile enough to ship you off to?"

"Well then you would lose everything." He simpered, "What you must understand Mr. Pearce. I don't play games I have no chance of winning. And whatever you do here, I win. It's all about minimising your loss. Think about it, what would you have done, if you were me? You knew that MI-5 was hot on your heels, that one of these days they were likely to catch up for you. And all of your hard work..."

"Would be engineered to ensure that it prevailed whatever we did to you..." Harry murmured, resisting both the urge to bang Jamal's head on the table and to bang his own head on the table.

"Precisely." Jamal sneered in honeyed tones, "You may only have one." He said with a satisfied smirk, "Whatever you to do me, you may only have one, it has been engineered to give me no choice in the matter. If you choose to save Ruth, the moment that combination is entered into a lock, messages will be sent to my people in The Asquith and live videos will be uploaded automatically to numerous different places across the web. They _will_ be seen, and it doesn't matter how many men storm that building, damage done. If you pick to save your hostages then I make a simple phone call and my men release them, this then triggers an electronic message to be sent to Ruth, causing the well to fill with water at a rate that means she will only suffer for perhaps another hour. "

Harry glowered at the man opposite, personally feeling that, at this precise moment in time, he could be trapped in solitary confinement with rats feasting on his testicles and he would still not be satisfied that the slimy bastard had suffered enough.

"A world full of impossible decisions, this can't be the hardest you've faced. In fact, on the contrary it should be quite easy by comparison. One effectively non-existent MI-5 officers versus countless civilians who I'm sure you have a duty to protect anyway, whatever the cost." He preened before patting him genially on the elbow as he said, condescension hanging from every syllable, "I took the liberty of warning her of your impending decision. She is at least forewarned of her fate. To be honest though, even without that, I don't think she ever had any reason to expect any better from you-"

Harry leapt to his feet at this point, both hands slammed on to the table as his eyes blazed with fury as he pressed his face very close towards Jamal's calm, sneering, mask-like one and hissed in a deadly whisper,

"I can quite confidently assure you that you are going to regret every word that has ever come out of your mouth. Every threat you have made towards my people and the people of this country..." he placed his mouth close to his ear as he breathed, "You shall pay for."

At that point, the thick steel door behind him burst open and Ros emerged through it, as unruffled as ever as she announced, coolly, without so much as sparing a glance for Jamal,

"Harry, Red Flash from The Grid." She turned towards him and told him with an icy sweetness, "I'm afraid you'll have to wait. Try to bring yourself to be able to comprehend that in the time we're giving you."

"I assure you Ms Myers; I'll try my very best." He sneered as she turned her back on him and stalked coldly from the room, a furious Harry in tow.

"What's the emergency?" he demanded, glowering at her as Lucas sidled up to them noiselessly from one of the many far-flung shadows he had developed a habit of lurking in.

"You." She told him, flatly, "Personally, ripping his throat out with your bare hands seems a little too good for him." She said, smoothly, "And we rather thought we should have a little discussion before you started making any rash decisions. This seemed slightly more subtle than knocking on the door and telling you someone had reversed into your car."

"There is only one decision that can be made." He snapped at her, "You know as well as I do that we have no choice. This is exactly what he wants to happen."

"Then perhaps we shouldn't be as quick to jump to it." Lucas put in quietly,

"Just because it's what he wants to happen doesn't mean that we should do the opposite, not when the alternative could be countless civilian casualties and a media storm that will make Hurricane Katrina look like a sneeze." He retorted, coldly,

"Not necessarily. He's engineered it to look as though we don't have a choice but maybe we do. If we can time it right, there wouldn't be any hostages to torture, we could pull them out first, we know where they are."

"He's too intelligent for that." Harry said, bitterly, shaking his head. He may despise the man but he was not about to let that cloud his judgement of the rest of him which had already shown him to be one of the most cunning, manipulative bastards he had had the pleasure to meet in the last few years, "He'll have everything covered for that eventuality. If we send CO-19 in there it will be a bloodbath, one that will most likely end up on YouTube the way the crafty arsehole works..." he sighed coldly, only avoiding losing his temper completely with the other man because he knew that he was rather more invested in this choice than he ought to be.

"That wasn't my point Harry." He replied, softly, "The point is, there's always a third option."

"That is not always going to be open to us. It's not in this case." He told him softly, "I'm sorry Lucas. I know how you feel about this-" he began,

"No. You don't." He said, quietly, "Believe me, I'm the last person here to be advising you to sacrifice those people and God knows what else that gets caught up in the fallout for Ruth. In an ideal world, is that what I would like to do, probably. But this is a distant dream from an ideal world. I've been in her position twice in my life now and both times I was prepared to die for this country, for doing what this system tells me I must do. I never expected to be rescued. I expected to die there, one way or the other. It didn't have anything to do with depression or optimism or even resignation, it had to do we me knowing who and what I was. With me knowing how much I was worth. I know, she knows, everyone in this building knows why you would make that decision but that's not why I'm questioning whether or not you should. This all seems to easy..."

"Too easy?" He shot back, furiously, "You think it is _easy _to make the conscious decision to send one of my team members to their certain death because some jumped up terrorist arsehole terrorist practically tells me that I have to?" he demanded hotly, his burning eyes boring in to the other man with a scalding intensity.

"No." Lucas murmured, "It would be an impossible decision if you had to make it. You don't." He said quietly, "You know how to make it, I know, Ros knows, Ruth knows, everyone in this building knows because we're all singing form the same hymn sheet that's been handed down from God's above our heads who have already told us what to parrot when we're faced with this situation. You can't make a decision when you're basing it on someone else's morals and beliefs. I think Jamal knows that full well. I think he knows and I think he's playing us. There's a catch we can't see and we won't see until it's too late..."

"Well at the minute it's going to be too late for both of them. We need to make a 'decision' based on someone's morals _now_ or we only serve to achieve both of his ends. So come Lucas, what's it to be? Because as far as I can see, whoever's decision it is, this is the one we must make because we don't have time to find a third way that pleases everyone."

It was taking all of his self-control and all of his blind optimism that somehow, Tariq would make a breakthrough on the tapes he had been going over religiously and would find her. However, Lucas was right. The decision was not really being made by him; he was merely the messenger in this case. The one they happily sent to be shot so they could commit whatever atrocious acts they wished and the face of the messenger would be all that anyone ever remembered, no-one wanting to bother searching the shadows for the real culprit when they had a beautifully culpable poster-boy in front of them at which to direct their rage.

At the end of the day, that was all he was, all any of them were...

"I still say now. It's a double edged sword. I say we feed him to the wolves and don't listen to his screams." Lucas replied, coldly, folding his arms across his chest and turning to Ros,

"Harry's right. This is all we can do. I'm sorry Lucas." She told him quietly as his eyes darkened. However he only nodded, stiffly and said no more on the subject. "Tell Tariq to get what he can from the videos and see if Sofia's managed to dig up any more dirt on our mysterious records." She told him.

They parted then, Lucas walked back towards the heart of The Grid while Ros and Harry headed in the opposite direction back to the interrogation room Jamal was being held in. Harry entered the room first, causing Jamal to look up insolently and sneer,

"Dear, dear Mr. Pearce, it seems you have something stuck to your shoe..." he paused a moment as Ros turned impassively to him and continued mockingly, "Oh my mistake, it's just Ms Myers. Needed someone to hold your hand while you signed her life away?"

Ros flicked her eyes towards the ceiling momentarily as she took a deep breath and wandered over towards Jamal. Positioning herself behind him she placed a hand on his neck and bent down to whisper tonelessly in his ear,

"Oops, _my_ mistake." She hissed, smoothly as she slammed his head against the table without warning, splitting open his lip before stalking calmly from him to the corner of the room where she turned to face him once more with an impassive expression.

"You want to be careful Ms Myers." He told her lightly, dabbing at his streaming lip and eyeing her cruelly, the flash of anger in his eyes the only emotion he had willingly displayed. The mask was slipping and she would gladly rip it off when the time came, "It could get you in to serious trouble...Or those that you care about. I have people all over this country, people who would die for me and kill for me if they knew what you had done."

"Well congratulations." She said, deadpan,

"Congratulations will be in order. But not quite yet. I am only warning you to hold your tongue and your temper in check Ms Myers, friendly advice from someone who knows how ugly it can become in prison, would be a shame if anything happened to him-"

Ros started forwards, furiously and Harry snatched at her elbow, holding her back. The initial physical contact was enough as she glared at him furiously, before retorting, in true Ros fashion,

"I think you may be finding out _exactly _how ugly this world can be. What we can, and will, do to you will make prison look about as ugly as Disneyland."

"Oh I fully expect that Ms Myers. I actually rather welcome it, it will mean I no longer have to deal with the monotony that this little game has become. Now, what's it to be...Time is ticking."

"Release the hostages." Ros said, tossing him a phone,

"So cold." He sneered, deftly catching the phone and flipping it open, "Has it really become so easy for you? Are you really that empty that it is nothing to sentence a colleague, a _friend _to death?" He sneered, widening his eyes at her as he began to punch numbers into the keypad,

"Well as you pointed out, time is ticking." She retorted coolly, "Get on with it."

She glanced towards Harry. His jaw was locked tightly and fury was burning, barely concealed beneath his eyes. He was still holding on to the idea that they could still find her and the blinding knowledge that he had not had any other choice. He had approached this as coldly and as rationally as he had, disconnecting himself from the situation and forcing himself to believe that she would have done the same thing in his position.

"Let me explain how and why this is going to work." He told them patronizingly, finger hovering over the call button, "I make this call, deliver a pre-allocated code to one of my men inside, he will release half of the hostages-"

"Half is not what we agreed." Ros snarled, "All or nothing."

"Patience Ms Myers." He simpered, "All in good time. There are other people involved in this, other people who will not be too impressed if they see their investment wandering, unharmed from the hotel. We agreed previously that as part of the terms I would negotiate with you, I would agree to release half of the hostages first, after initial completion of a deal, the rest would follow when I received my full 'payment'."

"There has been no deal." Ros snarled,

"No. But they don't know that. It's all about appearances Ms Myers and if I appear to comply with agreed protocol versus letting them all skip off into the sunset holding hands, I know which one is likely to garner the least amount of unwanted attention. The rest of the hostages will be released just under an hour later."

Ros glanced towards Harry. Whether Jamal was telling them the truth or not, they had to work on the worst case scenario and that was that if they assumed he was lying and demanded for everyone to be released, his watchers could turn a joyous release into a massacre. He nodded, almost imperceptibly and she turned back to him, saying grimly,

"Make the call."

Jamal hit call and they waited as the monotonous rings filled the room,

"824." Came the response on the other line,

"59364." Jamal replied calmly before smoothly disconnecting the call.

"That's it?" she demanded, sharply,

"That's it." He replied, quietly,

Ros turned on her heel and left the room, returning to The Grid, her voice preceding her as she called,

"Tariq. Find me every security camera feed in and around The Asquith and bring it up now."

They all gathered around the monitors, Harry joining them after a few moments, but keeping his distance, standing in the corner like a silent spectre. Whatever happened here would determine how the rest of this operation played out and how far they may have to emigrate.

They all watched as the doors opened and a small knot of terrified looking people poured from the hotel and spilled gratefully out onto the screen.

As several of the officers leant back, closing their eyes and allowing themselves to breathe, Sofia leaned forwards, taking the mouse in her hands, winding it back and freezing the frame on the group, eyes darting from one face to the other.

"What's wrong?" Ros asked, glancing at her, curiously, picking up on the intensity of her younger colleague and knowing that something was amiss.

"Someone can't count..." she muttered, distractedly,

"What do you mean?" Lucas asked,

"We worked out that there were twelve hostages inside The Asquith. Half of twelve is six."

"Yes, thank you, I went to primary school as well, what's your point?"

"My point is, nine people came out of that hotel. Now, I'm no expert, but I wouldn't say that keeping only three hostages when I could have had six, would be a good decision on my part..." she glanced around at her colleagues before murmuring, "I think Jamal is taking this opportunity to get his people out undercover and protect them from any repercussions. If I'm right, then someone in that crowd can lead us to Ruth and to the complete undoing of Jamal's little stage play."

A/N: Not too sure about this chapter, it's iffy content and late update were due to writer's block, my apologies there, I'd like to know how you think this worked, thanks for reading! Please review :)


	27. The Sail of Souls

**Chapter 27 **

The Sail of Souls

Ros and Lucas paused outside the run-down hotel, watching as their prey, Ashur Amari, slipped inside. They knew that they had one chance at this, one chance in a situation of true life and death.

"Ready?" she asked as they walked up the steps and into the run down little entrance way.

"Is there ever a choice where you're concerned?" he asked, dragging a smile from her reluctant lips.

"Never North, I'm glad you've learned something over the years." She smirked as they ducked inside.

The 'hotel' as Tariq had so loosely termed it, was really several rooms set over a bar and the bar was not the most attractive. It was filled with dark wood and thick smoke courtesy of a chocking, dying fire burning in the great, belching out great grey clouds of it.

They both watched quietly from a corner as their quarry murmured a few words in the ear of the bartender and then headed up the tightly coiling wooden staircase tucked away in a little alcove out of reach of the thick smoke and loud, raucous drinkers.

Walking meekly up to the bar, Lucas asked for a room for the night and the grim bartender grunted and accepted their money before sliding a rusted key towards them that looked more likely to snap in the lock than it did to open them.

Still it was enough to get them up the stairs without notice, both of them walking slowly as they reached the top, peering over the landing to watch and see where there new friend was headed. They watched him check on both sides of him to examine the seemingly deserted corridor before them before quietly slipping inside a room in the middle of a throng of doors. They both heard as the lock slid back into place seconds after the door clicked shut.

Glancing at one another they silently strode up the corridor and Lucas crouched down outside the door they had just watched him vanish in to. He cautiously began to pick the lock while she hovered outside, looking around them, paranoia flaring in her eyes.

The lock clicked satisfyingly and they both stood expectantly as Ros gave it a little push causing it to swing forwards into the room.

"Who the Hell are you?" the quavering voice demanded as they strolled into the room, easily closing to the door behind them.

"Gas Company." Ros replied, sweetly.

He dived wildly from the room and into the bedroom beyond, returning with a gun that he pointed, shakily at them both.

"I said..." he hissed, with as much authority as he could muster while the gun continued to tremble in his hands, "Who the Hell are you?"

"Impatient." Ros replied simply, crossing the distance between them faster than he could react to and placing one hand behind his elbow, locking his arm as she struck his forearm with the other hand, causing his arm to snap and the gun to fall loosely from his grip to the floor as he howled.

She kicked it away with irritation and strode around to face him, crouching down as he sank to his knees, clutching his arm, eyes streaming uncontrollably in pain.

"Have I made that clear enough?" she asked smoothly.

When he simply shivered on the floor, she took his chin between her hands and squeezed, widening her eyes until he nodded, petrified.

"Good." She said, pushing him away dismissively as she murmured, "Let me tell you what's going to happen here. We know that you are involved with a group called The Angel's Lies; we know you know the charming Hadi Jamal, who we now have in our custody. You should know that you have a friend of ours trapped somewhere and that you have about two minutes to tell me where she is before I start breaking things."

"I don't know anything." He managed to gasp, unwisely, "And you can't do anything to me."

Ros sighed theatrically and glanced at Lucas, "_Legally _I can't do anything to you. Most unfortunately for you, I've never been one for rules." She told him, striking him in the chest and flipping him onto his back before pinning the fingers of his left hand to the rough wooden floor with the heel of her boot, "And I think we both know that you know a lot more about this than you would like to. You now have a minute and a half..."

"I don't, I..." he stammered. She applied more pressure to his fingers and he howled and panted, "OK, OK...I know, I know..."

"Well then please, didn't your parents tell you that sharing was nice?" she breathed, "One minute."

"I'll tell you where she is." He choked, straining against her.

She refused to move and snarled, "Stop telling us that you know and that you might tell us at some point in the future and start actually telling us." She spat, flexing the balls of her feet and cracking his fingers, causing him to scream in pain again, "Thirty seconds."

"She's, she's out in the middle of nowhere. Outside London...If you get me a map I can show you."

"Much better." She said, sweetly, removing her foot from his fingers and quickly transferring it to his chest, "Ah ah ah." She cautioned, "I'm nowhere near done with you yet."

Lucas found a road map stashed in one of the drawers of the bedside table and flung it wordlessly at the pathetic little man wriggling around on the floor under Ros' foot.

He shakily flicked through it and pointed tremulously at a spot in the middle of a large cluster of trees about an hour from the edges of London.

"She's there." He told them softly. When neither of them moved he added, fiercely, "I swear it. I would rather keep my fingers than do anything to help Jamal again." The bitterness in his voice was something they both recognised.

Slowly, Ros removed her foot from his chest and they came together, wordlessly agreeing that he was telling the truth. They were about to leave when Lucas turned to him, still sprawled on the ground and said, "The codes that will free her."

"I know them." He said, curtly, "There's a card on the table by the door. It has my number on it. Call it if you find her and she's still alive. Call me with a promise of a new life and of freedom, whatever happens and whatever you find out; I'll give you the codes then."

They both knew that they had to trust him on this and that they had no time to do anything other than what he had suggested. They both turned and had nearly cleared the door when Ros turned back to them, eyes narrowed dangerously,

"You know," she hissed in a deadly whisper from the door, "I would be concerned about more than my fingers if I was you. The average adult human has two hundred and six bones in their body. If I find out that you've lied to me, I will come after you and wherever you are, I _will _find you and I will take great pleasure in breaking each and every one of those two hundred and six bones individually and very slowly. Am I understood?"

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Ros and Lucas both arrived on The Grid once more and quickly shared what they had learned and the deal their unwilling informant had made.

"Right, if all things go to plan, Jamal should be releasing the remainder of the hostages within the hour, Ros, Sofia, get down to The Asquith and over-sea the evacuation. If anyone so much as sustains a paper-cut because of Jamal there will be blood to pay." He said, grimly, "Lucas, you're coming with me. We go to Ruth. Tariq, stay here and ensure that we all have comms throughout this. I lose them for so much as a heartbeat and it'll be your blood I take as payment."

Ros and Sofia drove in almost total silence, barely two sentences passing between them as they travelled to The Asquith, tension filling the car as anticipation filled them. Ros was surprised when she saw the younger woman's hand clenched around something attached to a fine silver chain around her throat and was more shocked to see a small silver cross cradled between her fingers.

"I never had you down as being religious." She murmured,

She shrugged, "I'm not. After everything I've seen in this world, if there is a God, it's not one I want to pray to and not one that deserves my respect or my worship." She said pointedly, "It was my grandmother's. She told me it would bring me luck. I'm still here. I guess it can't hurt..."

But if it couldn't help either then really, what was the point? Ros thought, though she chose not to share this particular sentiment with the younger woman and they completed to journey without another word passing between their anxious lips.

They pulled up outside The Asquith and swung out of the car almost before it had come to a halt, both of them simultaneously checking their watches as their feet struck the hard, cold ground beneath them.

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Harry and Lucas had been driving for about twenty minutes when the younger man's phone interrupted the tense silence that had blossomed brilliantly between them, filling the claustrophobic car and thickening the already heavy atmosphere.

"Lucas North." He answered, shortly, "Peter?" he asked, enquiringly, raising a confused eyebrow. They had not expected to hear from him again. For one reason or the other.

The other man's voice shook and broke in unlikely place and everything he said was spoken in a hushed whisper, as though he was afraid, not only to be heard, but also, to be found,

"Lucas..." he hissed, "Do you have people at the Asquith?"

"Why?" he asked, knowing that not only had Ros and Sofia headed there, but there were over two dozen police officers and CO-19 present as well, waiting to contain the chaos that would inevitably erupt from the hotel and to round up the remainder of Jamal's supporters.

"It's...Trap." he croaked, weakly, "Jamal was always only trying to draw you out...He's going to kill them all..."

"How?" he demanded, harshly, not having time to question whether or not this was true, how he knew it, why he was telling him. He could only work off of the basis that he was true and that all Hell would break loose if this was indeed what Jamal had wanted from the beginning and he was now getting it, "How is he going to kill them. Peter, talk to me."

"Bomb..." the younger man choked desperately, "There's a bomb in the hotel."

"Where?" he asked, curtly, "Peter, where is the bomb? Whereabouts in the hotel? Peter!"

Silence ensued for an agonizing few seconds as Lucas waited, every muscle tensed, every nerve on fire, waiting for the answer that seemed unlikely ever to come, static crackling like electricity between them.

"I don't know..." he murmured, "In...Ballroom, somewhere." He managed to gasp out, clearly in pain.

"OK, that's good. Thank you." Lucas murmured, knowing that Harry was relaying what he could back to Tariq. "What else can you tell me Peter?" he asked. Empty silence filled the pause where an answer should have been, prompting Lucas to say, "Peter? Are you alright?"

Shouting echoed over the line as they drew up to their destination. Lucas started, horrified as the unmistakeable sound of a gunshot and a shriek of pain reached him before he doubled over in agony as the shrill scream of the cut connection burst into life in his ears. Shocking him out of the silence left in the wake of Peter's death.

"What exactly did he tell you?" Harry asked brusquely, there would be time for commendations and commiserations later. Now was the time for action.

"There's a bomb hidden somewhere in The Asquith's ballroom." He said, shortly, already recalling the last hotel Ros had been trapped in where she had been served up a complimentary explosion.

"Shit." Harry snarled, "Call Ros, make sure she knows, and get Sofia onto Amari we need those codes."

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Ros and Sofia were waiting outside as the seconds trickled by, both of them jumping as the sound of Ros' phone exploded through to tense calm that filled the air.

"Shit..." Was all the response Sofia got as Ros listened to whatever was going on on the other end of the line.

"What's going on?" she asked, the second the senior officer had grimly hung up.

"There's a bomb in the ballroom somewhere. It was Jamal's plan all along, draw us all in here when we thought it was safe and then blow us all to Kingdom come while we thought we had won."

"Shit indeed." Sofia agreed darkly, "So we go in now?"

"No." Ros told her bluntly, "I go in now, you get on to Amari and find the codes to free Ruth. " when Sofia began to protest she shook her head and said, "No arguments. Harry's orders."

"Harry's orders can go fuck thems-"she began hotly,

"No they can't." She said calmly, "I need someone here I can trust to get those codes and to get her out and I need someone to talk to Tariq and tell me how to get rid of this thing. This is not up for negotiation, do you understand?"

"Yes." She replied curtly, pulling out a phone as, in response to her grim answer, Ros turned and plunged into the hotel to sound the alarm.

"Tariq, get me talking to Ros and Harry and Lucas." She said shortly as the connection burst into existence in her eardrums.

As he hastened to do as he had been told, she punched the number into the keypad of her mobile and held it to her ear, dancing around on the spot as though she was standing on hot coals as she waited for him to answer.

"Codes. Now." She snarled, hotly as soon as a connection was made.

"Didn't your mother ever teach you say please?" he cooed, far more teasing and trying when Ros' foot was not rammed into his chest,

"No, she's dead." Sofia snapped, "As will you be."

"Really?"

"You don't think we've got people watching you, you slimy little shit? I click my fingers they decorate the inside of your room with your brains." She hissed, "Give them to me."

"And what are you going to give me?" he asked,

"Hell if you don't start talking." She spat back.

"We had a deal, I want my free-"

"Yes, yes, you can have you freedom, you can have a new life somewhere, Hell you can have Scotland as well if you want. Just give me those damn codes."

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Harry and Lucas raced over the rough ground, the long grass reaching in to their clothes and snatching, irritatingly, at their skin as they ran. Lucas' long legs carried him faster and he reached the open clearing first, skidding along the slick ground on his side, coming to a halt at the entrance to the deep pit in the ground.

He hastily rammed his fingers between the bars to attract Ruth' attention as she struggled to breathe in the water that was almost pressed against the grate and still rising. He examined the lock and turned, desperately to Harry who had just entered the clearing behind him.

"Sofia." Harry growled, "Any time you're ready."

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"You either give them to me now or so help me God every MI-5 officer in this country will descend upon you and I will not be responsible for what they do to you. Codes. Now."

TO her horror, as he was about to answer, she heard a door slam on the other end of the line and heard him squeal in terror, like a cornered piglet.

"Amari please!" she shrieked, desperately.

"You, you already have them. I hid them in plain sight, as a back-up in case anything went wrong. You've been agonizing over them for-"

"What? What, Amari. Shit!" she almost wrenched the comm from her ear in frustration before it hit her. What she had been agonizing over. What had seemed so wrong. She ripped out her phone and hastily began hitting buttons as she commanded,

"Tariq, open the Luke Evans file."

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The water was now lapping over the grate, leaving no gap at all for Ruth to try and find some sliver of air to force into her lungs. She had slipped farther and farther down until Lucas could no longer reach her, even pressed against the ground on his stomach, desperately ramming his hand through the grate.

As he watched her float like a ghost in the greenish water before him, Harry snarled into the comm,

"Sofia!"

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"Wait! Just _wait_!" she snarled as the incessant, infuriating rings filled her ears before finally,

"When was your husband born?"

"Excuse me?"

"I don't have time for you to start thinking and questioning and wondering how many American children this answer could potentially keep from private school, just give me the damn answer. Husband. Birthday. When was it? When did your wonderful Luke first come in to existence?"

"The thirty first of October 1980." Came the confused reply.

"Thank you." She breathed, "Tariq?"

"The birthday on here is the twenty eight of May 1975."

"Lucas! Try 2-8-0-5-1-9-7-5."

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Lucas' fingers, slick and wet fumbled over the stiff combination lock as he entered the code Sofia had given, desperately to Harry. He gasped in relief as it split open and he pulled it from the grate, wrenching it away from the ground and plunging himself into the icy water, seizing her fingers and pulling her to the surface.

As they burst free from the water, her head lolled lifelessly against his shoulder and he told her fiercely,

"Oh no. We have been through _far _too much shit together now, you're not dying on me now you selfish...You're coming through this whether you want to or not."

As panic flared in his chest as he pulled her out on to dry land and his long, delicate fingers scrabbled at her neck for a pulse and found that he was unable to find one, horror flared in Harry's as a deafening explosion sounded in his ears and the connection between Sofia and Ros went dead.

Harry staggered backwards, removed from the world around him, his hand gently tracing the outline of his cold, taut lips as the deafening explosion rang in his ears along with an empty static as Lucas was crouched on his knees over Ruth, desperately pressing down on her ribs as he snarled,

"Breathe. Breathe. Please breathe. Breathe!"

A/N: I'm coming in to exam time again so I apologise in advance for the random update patterns you'll have to get used to. I'll try and not leave you hanging with this evil cliff-hanger for too long but you have been warned!


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